23 June at 09:41 ·

Silver Spring, MD ·

 

… At the labor temple –

 

The mockingbirds are at war.

One dives from the 30-minute

parking sign, one perched on a

high security camera. They are

fighting over a small pin oak planted

by union hands and hearts.

 

Who represents the voices of the night?

The little voices who sing their hearts out

until they find a partner. Their class, the

songbirds – the whippoorwills, the loons

all the poets and song crafters who lift

inspiration from the air.

 

Lofty attempts to re-create what

nature provides, like that pin oak –

all mulched up and majestic.

Who represents the carpenter bees?

They are being trapped in mason jars,

to keep them from boring into the

fancy benches placed around the

workers memorial!

 

Who represents the crow?

Labeled ominous, being chased

by two smaller birds. They dart across

this neatly sodded land, held away from

a separate set of capital plans.

The solid black shadow of a trickster,

bell weather of doom …

Who placed that

on the crow?

 

Who represents the little birds?

Pecking and soaring the crows away?

 

At the labor temple, this morning –

around and around we go …

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