San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

CHARLES HARMON

Birds in Fog

That night I drove back late from your place
The fog was so thick
I could barely see the road
And the brightest lights on the freeway
Resembled parallel moons obscured by cloud.
Somehow I got home safely
And looking out my window
As I walked to my own bed
I observed two birds sitting
Perched side-by-side on the telephone wire,
The same wire that carries our conversations
Back and forth between your life and mine.

As I shut the window, startled,
They leaped from the cable
Soaring into the air, dancing in spirals
Around one another, disappearing into mist.
Lying down between the sheets, closing my eyes,
I could hear them singing, even through the glass.
When I opened the window again, this time
They did not fly away, but held to their perch,
Glancing at me momentarily, then
Resuming their song, courting in duet
As the fog swirled around them.

How had they been able to find their way home,
By what instinct, how could they intuit their path
Through this world of darkness and obscurity,
Of cloud and confusion?
Can we ever learn to find our way
To be together again?
We only get to keep
What we are willing to let go of,
By holding on too hard we lose all….
So if these birds seem so content and comfortable
Within this world of ambiguity,
Of imperfect knowledge, limited powers,
And incomplete freedom,
If they can find their way through the fog

Then why not also we?