Salted Feathers

Posted on by

bird-feather-13486506267nW

To listen to an audio of me reading this poem, just click on the link below. Give it a few seconds, and it will start.

salt shaker

Salted Feathers

I was four when you told me the story
that if someone wanted to capture a bird
they must sprinkle its tail with salt.

We went outside, salt shaker in hand,
not sure what we really planned to do.
In the end, it was a tiny sparrow foraging

for fallen seeds or tiny insects on the other
side of the chain link fence at the back
of the yard. You told me to go ahead and

sprinkle it. My hand would not fit through
the opening link square with the shaker.
Blindly I tossed a spray of salt that landed

more on you and me than any place else.
The little bird was spared, and he continued
rummaging around in the grasses, indifferent

to the plans made by two small girls who
had no real idea what it was to take away
the gift of flight. No salted feathers for him.

All I remember now is that I felt something
happen inside when the little bird looked
at me and, in the way of all birds, off it flew.

1-chain link 1 (1)

24 thoughts on “Salted Feathers”

Leave a Comment or Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.