Real facts

A poem.

Real facts  

A pigeon's feathers are heavier than its bones.

– Printed inside a Snapple bottle cap  

Hollow bones support the simple weight  
of life toeing a plaza full of crumbs.  
The pigeon dips its head to consecrate  
my offerings, and the small park becomes  
a minor metaphor of good and grace:  
What is this bird to me, that I should feed it?  
And yet because we share this common place  
it brings a kind of kinship, and I need it.  
Fueled now, it shakes its heavy wings
and leaps into the air which parts, receiving  
the pigeon into more celestial things,  
and me into the prospect of believing
that burdens may have usefulness unknown.  
Spread, wings, and lift me up to see my own.  

– Robin Shectman Richstone