I write knowingly about birds in poems

after learning the habits of the hummingbirds
in our backyard, about how they perch
eat, chase each other, how they sound

I hear them at night after they've roosted in the laurel hedge
see them outside the picture window
then flit back into the lilac bush,
their destination imbued with greater meaning due to the apparent specificity
and speed of their flight

I begin to understand the bird allusions in poems
Kooser's sparrow, Stevens' blackbird, blue birds

We watch these creatures do one thing we can't
and are reminded of other longings, freedom, lost love, doubt

a child's love for the parent, despair
the wonder in the expectant
and the loss