Good morning yellow-beaked robin redbreast.
I see you quenching your thirst in the bird bath of cobalt blue,
Your brown feathers closed and at rest.
You look toward me wondering why
I am not digging earth to reveal
The worms and insects for your next meal.
Like you, I must first
Have breakfast and quench my thirst.
Some mornings start late after hard nights
Catching the painful dreams in my fists
Anchoring my body to the bed as I twist
The anger and fear as shells fall
On Ukrainian apartment buildings,
Killing the old and the very small.
As a young Black man with a traffic violation
is cut down in volleys of bullets on an Akron street,
Joining other Black men and women throughout the nation.
As nine year old rape victims must flee
to another state to be made well,
and women no longer are free where they dwell,.
As thought police with hateful derision of history
block teachers with facts from teaching truth.
In truth, I cannot rest,
dear robin redbreast.
And you, little bird, may already sense the threat
against you and all creatures of earth
from man’s annihilation.
How can anyone rest with such frustration?
Soon, soon, I will join in the garden,
Weeding and dead-heading, disturbing the earth
and drawing the earthworms nearer to you.
Be kind, dear robin, only take what you need
and never, never, be guided by greed.
