A fledgling coos into a curious current of air;
a zephyr of indefinite origin: placid,
though as dense as stale breath.
With sprouted feathers slightly ruffled;
lamenting of a summer wind
a bespeckled, barely-out-of-the-egg
bird coughs at the earth,
flutters with metered sonation
as a gliding burnt-grass-brown moth
catches the brood’s monophyletic gawk and gape,
though just for second: an ephemeral needle-prick in space-time
it catches the brood’s eye.
With youth, sporadic anticipation, and a wing-flap sonata
of naïveté; the bird hops for a measure,
stops to peck at some unknown ort in the grass
then disappears in awkward flight over the outstretched
and reaching arms of a hundred groaning trees.
