Dead Birds Singing

At the edge of the cactus garden

between the rocks

moist earth shrouds her feathered bones.

Only yesterday, I gave the gentle farewell,

commending body to earth and spirit to sky,

planted her among the rocks beside the mint,

the fuchsias, basil, oregano.

The begonias whispered with the thyme

about the young bird’s clattering fall

into the droop of geraniums barely pink,

a window box hint of spring.

Paused there, at my window, confused by the impact,

the blue-eyed stare. No gray dove notes sounded, but

fluffing fledgling wings, it turned

to contemplate the fall.

I, a nervous mother, watched

the stumbling lurch toward outer wall.

High in the lucuma tree, a bird moved to follow.

I felt the sigh when her fledgling caught a garden breeze

and floated briefly toward the sky.

A different bird greeted this dawn

in an old dog’s mouth.

Another fledgling Lima dove

whose spirit just flew south.

About the Author

Seattle native K. M. Huber studied in Portland, OR, then New York City, where she worked for a decade before moving to South America with her Peruvian husband. After working in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Atlanta, and Peru, they recently moved to Maryville, TN. Huber’s work has been published in journals such as Poydras Review, Vice-Versa, Earth Island Journal, Post Road, MacGuffin and Amarillo Bay. She wrote and co-produced an award-winning documentary about deforestation in the Nazca region. Her extensive research into the Nazca culture and the region’s fragile ecosystem resulted in a novel now looking for a home. To view more of her work click below.

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