Kevin Brophy #1 Flight Again

Flight Again
Responding to Kit Kelen's 'Imagine Me Made of Mist' and Andrew Burke's 'Taking Flight'

As we stand thinking about bread and coffee,
on the first morning of what still feels like
next year,
the kitchen window glass stops
a rare azure kingfisher in its flight, knocking it down
onto the verandah
where its orange legs retract
into its orange-and-cream washed chest,
its wings close over its blue back
and its long beak opens quivering,
its eyes fixed on nothing as it lies
on Patten's hand now,
new honey poured out on fresh bread
on the kitchen bench,
fruit itching to be harvested or stolen
in the orchard,
potatoes bursting with themselves
in the dark soil,
zucchinis nosing around
in the new sunlight,

and a kingfisher laid out
under the Linden tree,
the small bird fearful it might have been mistaken
in everything
it thought it knew about flight.