Turkeys
I hear vigorous flapping in low-slung branches where
turkeys fly to roost, wild turkeys in a group.
Would this be a gang, a rafter or flock?
I count five, no six and I admit I am guilty
of the predictable human response
to seeing turkeys – I gobble!
Two answer immediately, chiding me
for daring to speak in their tongue –
What did I say?
Now they descend to the ground,
several hens and a pair of large Toms.
As if on cue the males fan out to display full size.
They are ambling, seemingly off balance
I smile – they are so awkward, trying to walk
With tails feathers extended.
Hens peck at the ground at morsels I cannot see,
oblivious to these strutting Toms.
Did the males display to warn me off?
I call them again, as if repeating gibberish
in a foreign tongue – they squawk, stretching necks
forward in throaty voices, strutting around.
I tell them in my own language that
I think they are quite magnificent,
but of course, they already know this.
Tanka Poem: Starlings
Aerial madness,
synchronized in frenzied flight –
wheeling swooping wings,
graceful whirling, left then right,
unison murmuration.
Over Steel Rails
On an old feather bed
on my back, not asleep –
hands beneath my head,
chin moving imperceptively,
counting silently.
One hundred cars –
loaded with coal, maybe lumber –
a mile- long from the time
it passed the crossing.
Heavy cars reverberate,
clacking over steel rails.
I won’t sleep tonight, until
the last freight car is long past
my grandfather’s house.
Entwined
I am the wind.
Moving air about
more out of boredom, really,
I despise inactivity.
I am the earth.
In silent caves, on rocky cliffs
the darkest forest deep,
The mother beneath your feet.
I am the ice.
Thin coating over cold water,
fish peer through my window,
a circling hawk flies in shadow.
I am the fire.
Always hot, I burn,
my sorrow in dying embers,
flame gone, no one remembers.
I am the sky.
Not so much above it all;
I wrap myself around
these elements that are bound.
All factions are in kind,
cohesively entwined.
—Julie (Culverhouse) Dickson
Exeter, New Hampshire
former Harvard resident
