Poetry

It starts small: a bud, a leaf, a bird.

This particular small brown Cuban wagtail 

(I think) 

that hops on stick legs after crumbs

and will fly through the kitchen

and out again.

Sometimes it expands and takes you with it:

the migrations are spectacular

like dreams you couldn’t make up if you tried –

like last night’s dream in which

I led my parents

into a hotel room to make me

and told them, “I’m glad you could

get together” as I left them there.

Sometimes a life grows

seventy years or more.

Sometimes, it stays small. They touch

and nothing comes of it.

The bird hops clean away.