This time of year, I always feel, “we made it” as the days are lengthening slightly and shoots are peeking. There is a small collection pond near my apartment and the red winged black birds that nest around it are bright with song again in the morning :)
Another stock photo! What a treasure trove!

Ode to the Seagulls

Ode to the seagulls
who are perched
on two street lamps
on my way to work
over the busy freeway,
the prettiest part
between Black Lake Boulevard
and Cooper Point Road.

Sometimes there is one bird alone
and I wonder if it recently visited the others,
then required aloneness,
if feathered ones are introverts and extroverts,
party planners and party poopers.

Some days the lampposts
are packed like bar stools at happy hour
and I don’t have time to count,
speeding under
to work slightly late
to work on time
to work slightly early.

They can’t know the hope they give me,
for nature,
for the continuance of well being,
and the gratitude for cars and the freeway
and even the nearby bridge over the freeway
where I imagine swallows have nests,
where people have on occasion jumped off.
Or maybe they do know,
in the same way the hawk senses the mouse,
in the way starlings mumurate,
moving together,
a rising collective.