This last poem--
I realized I have a lot of birds.
It's the last bird poem.
It's called Wildlife.
Of course, my sister noticed the owl in the road.
And that it was alive, injured, not dead.
Wounded by a truck.
Probably having swooped, focused on vole or frog.
And somehow then was grazed or worse, not crushed,
left flightless.
She collected it.
Called the owl people.
Delivered him, male they said, to see
what they, with their deft discerning hands, could do.
No fractures, they told her, but damage to both eyes.
My sister called the maximum allowable number
of follow up times, each requiring
a donation towards rescue in general, though quickly they
let her bypass the paywall.
A kindness.
My sister, whose husband today for the first time was baffled,
illegible, unsure how to sign a check.
Who also just asked her to mark his shoes L and R, as they've
been hurting his feet.
My sister, whose best friend's husband
died last weekend accidentally skiing into a tree.
My stunned sister, the seer through of beloveds,
noticed the owl undone in the road.
She placed him in a box, drove him to another state, Maine.
She's the dinner deliverer for widowed Beth Ann.
And apparently now also on it goes
for her funeral planner for some other guy, her husband's uncle,
I think.
Interment, insurance proxies, doctors, attorneys.
In fact, safety, and sharpies, and lunch.
Never an hour of solitude.
Three weeks the owl was nursed and observed,
his eyes deep in an eddy of beige-brindled feathers.
Onyx irises taking a rest, if he knew he was safe.
His narrow beak like a petal of forsythia.
She'd said he was the size of a rugby ball,
a sport played Sundays on the field beside the road
where he was hit, where my sister and her husband
sometimes walk.
Then the owlists invited her to come back
and to release him for their feeds.
They made an inspirational video, though little,
little did they know.
She holds that owl like a catcher's mitt, a bride's
bouquet.
His speckled back against her stomach.
He directs an implacable look at the world or into the camera.
His legs, I realize, are tucked, or more
than that, constrained in her work-gloved hands.
Well, long handler's gloves that protect her forearms,
her wrists.
She stands in a snowy, open field.
There are old footprints there, filled in by later snows.
And then she gently boosts her arms and opens them.
And out and up he goes, enormous extended.
Her face soft with joy.
I watch it over and over.
Yes, the shocking wingspan, talons, muscly legs.
He pumps through what might have been a stumble dip.
And then all flight.
She loves him in his winter tree.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
Sally, thank you so much.
So great.