We fly at each other, across the human
-sized streets of this ancient gathering 
ground, these mellow golden stone streets

We are not old, but youth has flown
and taken roost in leggy fledglings
blushing beside us. Look at us.

These bushy years, these old dilemmas
rubber boot years worn low to the point 
between comfort and decrepitude

You adapt to the holes, you step
around the inconsistent love, phantom
twilight deer in the green park

Someone told me today of some birds
that no longer understand each other’s song
these birds are dying. How can that be real?

Behind us in the park the girls walk, chatting
then run ahead, and we lag at the edge of dark
comparing fears, and hope, that constant small 

Wheedle every mother sings: World, love 

our children, and our children’s children
remind them they are born for purposes
mysterious as yet, but surely

at least as beautiful as that bird
fluttering in our well-feathered 
bodies, stirring memories of flight.

Photo courtesy NgHang Vu on pixabay.com