Notes About The Poem
For 1476 Poetry Contest sponsored by Brian Strand
A Riddle Dies Unsolved
A bird flies over a blue-green sphere,
but it doesn't measure a day or year -
it may be ten thousand years ago,
or perhaps, ten thousand years, hence -
the world glanced over by a crow
shows neither monument, wall, nor fence.
Sometimes, it soars, sometimes it flaps -
in the now, it knows no future or remains,
using eyes, not names on maps,
for it has no use for names.
Never, does it count up scores.
It only flaps and soars.
But you're human, so I will appease,
using man's names for these things it sees:
towering, fruit laden trees,
over desert hares enjoying breeze,
as they feel it softly blow
the date palms of Jericho.
Leatherbacks in the ocean, that glide free,
but hatch upon the land...whereupon,
they find their way back to the sea -
the turtles of Marathon.
Swimming to the river's song,
darting under an iceberg,
in a current, cold and strong,
the brook trout of Gettysburg.
Down below, a mountain steep
in the prairie far below
graze those austere sheep,
the bighorn of Ludlow.
Over the scrub and brush
and flying by the sea,
it spies the singing mistle thrush,
and gulls of Gallipoli.
Wildflowers bloom by trickling springs.
A mother bird patiently sits.
So pleasantly she sings -
a skylark in Auschwitz.
Living a life that's solitaire,
climbing on terrain that's rocky,
enjoying mountainous fresh air,
the serow of Nagasaki.
A kingfisher swoops down for a snack.
For a moment, he will not fly.
but will rest on the sturdy back
of a water buffalo in My Lai.
Spreading out his broad wings,
a seabird after a squall -
to her little chicks, a perch. she brings,
a cormorant in Stonewall.
Gazing at the full moon, in profile,
a striking pose, quite noble,
he mournfully howls all the while,
the grey wolf of Chernobyl.
Building a den in the sand,
the sweltering heat, to withstand,
this skittish animal was a
desert fox of Gaza.
Yet, there was one creature, unseen.
I wonder where its teeming masses went?
Was it unintelligent?
Was it unevolved?
Passenger pigeons or something mean -
a riddle dies unsolved.
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