“…The fiery hangbird…” – Thoreau’s description of an oriole in his Journal, 12/29/53
An all-day rain wanes
and the hawk atop the hemlock
fans her feathers to dry
in the wind, and the light
in the party-colored leaves
is just so…no it’s now
the oriole that circles
the hawk his body brighter
than three spread red tails,
the hawk a stubborn thumb
thrust into the sky just…so
what does a hawk do
amid the thick rain? If
I were her I’d find
a thick pine and side-
step in along a branch
mid-tree and listen and
listen to the rain’s
roar…or maybe, perhaps, I’d sit
like a totem-top and wait
for the bright sun of an oriole,
and just be here when
it came and swooped and
swerved its fiery orbits around me.
…the fiery hangbird