by Mark Fischweicher
It is being God
to feed the birds
and they have dressed up
for the feast.
I will teach them
how to worship.
common knowledge
for the Cardinals,
already dressed in robes of red,
old hat for the gray cheeked
almost threadbare Thrushes
and the black capped
Chickadees
Who already wear their yarmulkes
to shul
I should not worry who will feed them
When I am gone.
They have gone without my industry
for forever and a day,
for eons.
for a crow’s age, an
eternity;
and the bird-seed aisles are always full
of somewhat seedy people
all the time,
but we have brought them tragedy as well;
the Willow Flycatcher may soon
no longer play the field
and the Yellow-Breasted Chats
may not cluck or cackle
as much as you have heard
but I will feed them still
with no religious purpose
after all.
Mark Fischweicher has been involved with poetry all his life. As an elementary, junior high school, high school and adult educator he has published poems at all those levels and has taught courses on the Beats, the Black Mountain Poets, Ezra Pound, and The New York School of Poets.