Black Bird Blues

Sitting down here

with a stick,

scribbling in the sand,

I looked up

into a space in the sky

and there it was—a bird

looking down on me

and all this mess:

(blatant political atrocities);

Lazily hanging there in the air,

I swear—and no lie—it seemed

to wink an eye as it drifted down

and began to peck in all this mess:

(bigotry, racism, injustice, poverty, war);

Then it nonchalantly returned

to the heavenly sky—hovered momentarily

and then took off towards new horizons;

leaving me down here in all this mess:

(gender bias, anti-this, anti-that);

I won’t lie; sometimes I wish I could fly

away from it all; but that’s not my call;

I know why I’m here on this quest—

down here in all this mess:  (to clean it up!)

Yes, I’m just a bird of another feather;

down here with my sisters and brothers—

all working together—trying to make it better:

blessed to soar onward in all this messy weather.