Irrational Optimism

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, fledgling eastern phoebe

I am a nestling eastern phoebe

perched upon the edge

of the moss-lined mud cup

that is the only home I’ve ever known.

Here, under the roof eves

of the tattered house,

sixteen days have passed

since my egg-tooth

sliced open a world of possibility.

I have grown large in my dreaming

and this womb-bowl too small –

Feted on juicy vain insects,

my plump pin-feathered siblings

and I hunger for

more.

The sky is large and come-hither blue.

I know nothing of the experience

of flight,

but it consumes my definition

of self in entirety.

The distance between here

and the nearest tree is great.

The distance between here

and the rock-hard ground is great.

There are four cats below.

Three of them have been calculating.

I am on the edge.

I am the embodiment of

irrational optimism.

*

And I am flying.

© 2011-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" and 
"Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" 

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