In A Gallery Of Birds Poem by Salvatore Ala

The mind is brushed by sparrow wings.

Hart Crane


All shadows of a kind cross the atlas of the mind.

Alone or with fledglings in realistic settings

The ghosts of those birds migrated into words.

The longer we stayed the sound of a glade.

Windows doubled as skies for eternity in their eyes.

Even for a feather it is a heavy tether.

In each nest eggs at rest.

Such stillness grows like flight in repose

Mounted there in flying air.

What is seeming if nature is dreaming?

What is death to a hummingbird's breath?

In an eagle's gaze soar endless days.

A glass case sings it breaks with wings.

All field marks fade light goes into shade.