A Poem by Luci Shaw

Yesterday, this poem posted on The Other Journal struck me in all the right places:

Hate Invasion by Luci Shaw

Like swoops of dark birds settling, anxieties and doubts
weigh the branches, folding huge wings as they land.

Heavy, broody, and fidgeting, they’ve moved in,
building their awkward nests like clots in the trees,

black twigs jutting. Clouds will pass, but the mass
of sooty bodies walls off the sky, the stars, any heavenly light.

A clatter rises, intensifies, dense as rifle fire in a war zone,
clogging the air with stabbing, phony accusations

and arguments that sound irrefutable. It’s clear
these intruders plan to take over, reproducing their own

dark-feathered kind. They’ve driven out
the nesting doves, colonizing all the trees.

I try a clap, and a loud shout, to dislodge them.
Either they can’t hear it or they take it for applause.

Their harsh voices promote anarchy, disruption.
They join the local militia. To clear the air, to see

the sun again, I cry for an invasion of
a different kind from beyond far, deeper than in.

(I haven't written or read much poetry lately. That is about to change.)