Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bluebird

You can't expect
the milk to be delivered
to your house
by a bluebird
from a picture book
you looked at
at the age of four:
he's much older
now, can't carry those
bottles 'neath his wing,
can hardly even carry a tune
with his faded beak
that opens some nights
to leak out a cry
to the horrible god
that created him.

Don't think I'm
the bluebird, or that
you are. Let him get
old on his own and
die, like a real bluebird
that sat on a branch
in a book, turned his head
toward you, and radiated.


________-Ron Padgett