My friend the scholar-
is dying, after a quiet regular life
of Milton and birds, and if I could
imagine him a farewell, it would be this:
to look out into the small yard
he tended for forty years, to where
he placed the bird houses, the martin
house and the hummingbird feeder,
just in time to see a sweep of air
curve in and land, the great arctic gyrfalcon
not on his life list, there on the sill,
beak, feathers and pinions
and final knowledge, Adam’s homecoming
after the story’s end, better than Eden.
May he leave in his hand a feather, that his wife
might know where he has gone.
The Gift of Experience
10th Anniversary Anthology
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Home Pond
Aging & Death
Life List
Janet McCann