City Birders

by Anita S. Pulier


Two red-tailed hawks size up
a narrow strip of park,
survey a sycamore,
test its arthritic branches,
decide it is close enough to perfect.

Above the city’s din
New Yorkers hear tiny chirps,
grab dusty binoculars,
rush into elevators,
descend from great heights,

stand shoulder to shoulder,
crane necks,
squint eyes,
point at sharp beaked chicks
pleading for food from swooping parents.

This park, where worms
and rats share turf crammed
with cigarette butts and candy wrappers,
now home to hungry begging babies,

and as this crowd of city dwellers stands watch,
a few patrol, pick up bits of debris,
carefully deposit each piece in the trash,
as though casting a vote.


* * * * *

Anita’s chapbooks Perfect Diet and The Lovely Mundane and Sounds of Morning and her books The Butchers Diamond and Toast  were published by Finishing Line Press. Her new book Paradise Reexamined is in press with Kelsay Books due out in 2023. Anita’s poems have appeared both online and in print in many journals and anthologies and she has been the featured poet on The Writers Almanac and Cultural Weekly.