Murder

Robber Baron

Grackle

When something is gone

I think about birds. My dad is dying so I think about birds. All I can do is stare at the sky, my mouth agape. I think its going to rain.

Gulls

Every spring, gulls build nests on the roof across the street from my house. I watch them mate, fight for turf and build nests. They take turns watching for predators, while they sit on the nests. When the young come they are very ugly and large. Larger than their parents. As they age, I think they get smaller.

Species II

A British woman called into a radio talk show and told how she trapped starlings she found on her lawn. She killed them. Snapping their necks. She said they were an alien species and they didn’t belong.

Species

Crows, bluejays, and cardinals lay in heaps along junctions with injunctions: don’t touch.

Cardinals

The cardinal is a bloody red warm presence that perches against the bleak bare deciduous wasteland. A heart perched among the bare branches.

Varigated wodpecker

A fledgling woodpecker is on the ground near a busy road. I walk past it, afraid to do anything for fear of startling it. From across the street I stand watching it trying to fly up into a tree. Each try takes it closer, I stand watching the drama my fists clenched, as car after car passes and blocks my view.

From my vantage point, I watch as the bird gets weaker and more tired. Now its attempts to reach the safety of the branches becomes more hopeless. I stand paralyzed, wondering what I can do, when suddenly a women walks by and startles the bird and it flies out onto the road and is hit by a black SUV.

Passenger Pigeon

They hunted birds in North America because they could. Birds coated the sky so thick, they were like an overhead jungle shutting out the sun. An easy sport, they hunted the passenger pigeons until they were gone.

Habitat 3

Habitat 2

Habitat 1