A third time...

A third time...

How did this look to the birds?

I for one am certain the starlings who'd hovered over it did so en route to

    a friendly neighboring tree,

grieved to see the stiff serge suit and and even an old prince's tinny knee

   try steadying itself on the rails,

with a leg crumpled, finally, under another just like a fledgling's last step.

     Song sparrows know how chariots at the assault

and the strutting winds have stirred their tails before; how kindly tribes, bedizened & proud

   have slung weanlings on younger

shoulders before, in military grey, readying them for a cruel and perilous sky.

   And blackbirds, of course, who don't live only

for barren harvest fields like to fly low under swollen night stars.

I'm pretty certain, too the monotonously repeated fledgling's crumpled fall

     will always be enough to make the watchful, looking down, laugh or cry.