Adjacent in Their Lives

She's pleased to think about the birds

on Earth, in canopies and copsds,

on sidewalks and stone statues, back

yards, blue bluffs. Among the refugees

or crapping on the autos of the ultra-rich.

What if, she thinks, someone could show

some images of Earth and as night comes
around, each bird were represented
by one lit-up pixel--so many birds, so
many lights, they would obscure
the night with light. That's what they do

for her--the common birds she sees
around. They shine a light of life
on her when she's brought low
by grayness sometimes in her soul.
Oh, crows and juncos, hawks or jays,
the pigeons in a city, owls out in
the woods. She loves the way they live,

so pointedly, with such sharpness and
no little bit of courage. They sing and caw,
trill and hoot, shriek and burble--hard
to feel much bitterness when she
sees birds--or even thinks of them,
the many, the few, in trees, on dew.
They're strangers and companions,
she and the birds, adjacent in their lives.

Hans Ostrom 2024