Dichroic Reflections

and about time, too

Here are two very different poems. The first one just left my head this minute, based on something I saw yesterday morning.

Birds

Something's going to change.
The birds know
I saw them at sunrise
Flocking in patterns
Three, six, a dozen.

There's no sign of fall on the land here
So I can't tell if that's the change they see
Or if it's something else; just weather
Or a scent blowing in from somewhere else
Or maybe there's no change at all
And it was just a good morning to flock together.

Every morning is different from every other, though,
Like the birds, my own body reacts differently to each.
Some are for sleeping, some are for bounding out of bed
Some, like the birds', are for flocking together.

This is the first one I ever wrote that I thought was good enough to share, and the only one I've read in public. I can't believe I've never posted it here before. It's got a few weaknesses as a poem, because it's really meant to be a song, to the tune of Bill Morrissey's Birches. Morrissey's lyrics struck me as so sad that I wanted a happier ending, so I wrote one. This is also abolutely autobiographical. Minor things have changed since (Rudder reads more and watches TV less, and I have a pilot's license too) but not any of the major things.

Differences

He didn't like her music,
They didn't like the same books,
In fact, he didn't much like to read at all,
While she was always curled in some library nook.
And he liked watching TV,
While she found it a bore.
He was tall and calm,
She was short and sharp,
They were different to the very core.

Then one day without warning, in the middle of a fight,
She asked why they stayed together,
When he was so far from her Mr. Right.
The answer came back swiftly,
As if he'd thought on it awhile,
So perfect that it floored her.
Anger ended, she began to smile.
He said, "It's cause we give each other
Room to be who we are."
Then he left to fly his airplane.
She kept on playing her guitar.