The Poetics of Flight

Friends,

According to my Washington Nightscapes Calendar, today is National Bird Day, an observance founded in 2002 by the Avian Welfare Coalition. Where I live, on an estuary with migratory waterfowl who overwinter here, it’s the perfect time of year to celebrate birds.

This year’s theme is “A Bird in Flight Is Poetry in Motion.” I absolutely agree.

This morning I sat down to write a poem to honor the day and received a wonderful surprise in the process (revealed in the poem). Here’s the poem and some of my photos (taken at other times) to accompany it. I hope you enjoy it.

Give my best to the fine feathered friends in your neighborhood.

-Cathy

The Poetics of Flight

A Bird in Flight Is Poetry in Motion – theme for National Bird Day January 5, 2026

At first I think of cormorants
and how they beat black wings
in such staccato like tandem em-dashes
linking flight to sea to sky

Or the gull who hovers gallantly
against wind gusts suspended
in space seemingly still
a period to end a stanza

I contemplate the eagle
how it circles while training
its aptly named eye
on underwater prey
before the swooping
and extension of razored
talons into the water
hoping to pierce its catch
the way a poet aims
to grasp a hidden thread

Or the kingfisher released
like a reverse rocket
plunging straight down into the depths
harpoon beak spearing
sustenance that resists
capture

I flail for metaphor
for elegance for beauty
struggling instead
like yesterday’s merganser
wresting to swallow the sleek
fat fish too big for her beak
both of us wanting
to devour the incredible catch
to taste the richness of life
to pull it to the mouth
to the pen

But then the birds themselves
intervene to say this day is not
about the poem this day is about
the miraculousness of flight
of hollow bones and
the cornucopia of beta-keratin feathers
of ancient lineage and adaptation
of migration that makes borders
meaningless

The birds themselves as if knowing
I am trying to capture them with ink
send an envoy of diving ducks
furiously flapping across the sky
from left to right outside my living room
windows, the largest flock I have
ever seen airborne

And as their numbers thin
a dozen great blue herons
who usually soar solitaire
wing their way out of the western clouds
straight toward my window and I watch
as they rise above my roof their
legs extending behind them like
arrow tips

Years ago, before I learned to pay attention
I would have thought such orchestration
unbelievable. But now living with wildlife
at water’s edge I sip synchronicity
like morning tea, grateful for
every taste of astonishment.