five in flight

I.
Brown among bracken,
sparrows are blown like
leaves from autumn ground--
scattering like clay pigeons
in mid-air, filling the sky
with staccato notes.

II.
Pigeons plunge
from barn eaves
to hang-glide in
evening pastel--
wing-tips held carefully up
like little fingers above
teacups of fine china.
The sky hums with the whir
of pigeon wings and voices.

III.
The gull's gray wing-
feathers grasp
air like fingers,
beat as heart beats,
higher, to hover--
wings still,
but still held.

IV.
The Great Blue Heron
moves mechanically, pauses
prehistorically, then
folds itself into
a paperclip, and
rises with slow grace
into the heavy marsh air--
an algae-covered pond plant
held delicately in
slender beak.

V.
The plane pulls
ostrich plumes from
thin air--deliberately, as
if to impress. Its interior
hides a hundred hearts--
beating in its chest cavity
like the muffled beating
of so many wings.