The Birder and the Bird

The Birder and the Bird

by Kai Siedenburg, author of the Poems of Earth and Spirit series 

If we want

to know

about birds,

we are taught

to label,

categorize,

count,

to capture

these winged ones                

with a few words

or numbers,

reduce them

to a few marks

on a page.

But what

does that teach us     

about the essence

of bird-ness—

the wild beating

of wings,

the unbounded freedom

of flight,

the song

that must be sung—

even if no one

is listening?