I don't know what kind of bird I am.

It snowed again today; and since the flakes came down so slowly,

it was strangely unsatisfying. This is another version of the squirrel nest

photo from the other day, as modified by the Mondrian filter in Prisma.

Race With the Wind

Blue day! Blue day! ah! ah!

What a strange thing to say.

Ho can anyone understand?

I love the queer birds,

standing under a tree

with my head stuck up inside.

I thought you could read my mind

but I see you see leaves.

When a bird flies from a tree

something happens.

That is how you know

something is going to happen.

What the thrush said was

I don't know what kind of bird I am.

Put your bird on my shoulder.

You have to catch it first.

Gently! The breast is soft

like the center of a baby's head

before it learns to count.

Poor bird, out of his wits:

his heart is racing with the wind.

One to a zillion.

You'd think there was a bird inside!

This doesn't imply another and another.

It implies only one. Just one.

Mary Ruefle

Post Meridian; poems by Mary Ruefle

Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000, page 55.

The amount of punctuation in this poem is very interesting,

In a work of your own that is of medium length, try varied line lengths and plenty of punctuation.  jhh