Morning Poem by Morgan Michaels

The morning was warming
the sky was vein blue
behind the everywhere branches

when from nowhere out, a blackbird
landed on a bough that now
turned yellow,

and began to comb herself
with an orange beak
while traffic purled discretely in the street.

Watching the sky, content,
till joined by another
a grackle to whom she cackled

'You, there! Off my twig.'
adding something sharp about the neighborhood;
friendly fire? -

Then, in a tussle of bills and quills
ire took fire in the chill
gutters froze and rainbows fled

Children cried and basketballs shied from hoops-
the affair had the air of a silly domestic dispute
got hideously out.

Both flew off in the end-
leaving the neighborhood calm as before:
Nature allowing battles
but never wars.