poem

Migratory Birds

On the list serve,
a birder posts the sighting
of a yellow-headed

female blackbird
the same one, he says,
sighted last week.

How did he know it was the same?
This is a fact not in evidence
false on its face,

ipso facto and BOOM,
you might as well
be in the room, domineering

as in the old days -
shades up, not down
take the truck, not the car

click through the channels
never watch one show -
Why ask if you don’t

intend to listen?
Then the assertion,
1277 double-crested

cormorants in flocks
of 30 to 60. Was the passenger
pigeon flying too?