Bird Looking One Way, Then Another

2 Replies to “Bird Looking One Way, Then Another”

1. Oh, this is very complicated! But I like it, partly because I always feel so unreal in airports, and so baffled by the confidence everyone seems to have that the rest of the world is still there, that they’ll find it just as they left it.

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2. Indecisive figure on the sidewalk,/head tilted one way, body tilted the other: bird/listening for the coming of rain the same way
   I feel the tug,…warning of weather/even as the sun pours through and through.

   OF CLEAN AIRPORTS AND DAMP KERCHIEFS

   When the final call was made
   for you to board the last plane
   to places unknown, unexplained,
   I remained at the gate hoping
   you would look back, smile, too,
   and come running back for the
   kerchief you left on the bench.
   You would need it to blow your
   nose and maybe dry your eyes.
   But you wrote me years later
   that I did not even look at your
   direction, my head tilted away,
   or I could have seen your pleading
   arms gripping those of my tittering
   children, wildly agog by a maiden
   journey on a real plane–so much
   grander than the paper ones I
   made them when the last story
   was simply not enough to lull them
   to a slumber that I am sure would
   find them flying through clouds and
   the searing sun, and the sparrows,
   and the cherubims that guarded
   them jealously like you must have,
   before the final cut that came,
   and cut cleanly. I did not want to say
   goodbye. I looked at the airport
   clock. I wanted desperately to say
   Come back, come home. Come home!
   You were no longer looking, the line
   was moving, and I could no longer see
   anyone of you through my tears.
   Airports are freightening that way.

   —Albert B. Casuga
   04-04-11

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