RESCUED CHICKS -- PALMER ALASKA
Palmer was just the same as always
Though the mountains were taller now, 1000 feet taller at least. 3000.
New England has had this effect.
On the Glenn Highway, you never getting anywhere.
The mountains make your miles inches.
You try transit anyway.
Construction -- the same as always -- mud, dust.
Wait for the Pilot Car, turn off the engine, wait.
The wait is dusty.
The hawks circle lazy circles.
The river is taking the bank in Sutton.
The papers say it so this if fact.
Neighbors pull out valuables and toxics as the water rises.
The owner of the house is stuck in jail,
cannot assist with evacuation.
He killed his wife.
The paper gives no details of the murder but the 60-year sentence and that
the Borough promised a dumpster for neighbors for the toxins.
The dumpster has not arrived.
A cat runs along the shoulder, Calico, a girl, by genetic necessity.
She glances over her shoulder for the hawk
which wheels slowly in the blue, which was once a just a chick in a nest
mouth wide open, like all of us.
Yesterday Sherri rescued some chicks from US Mail.
They survived four days of transit, but barely,
bumped, dumped, tumbled in dark, the clerk told Sherri.
Sherri tends them in the night,
kneels by their box, speaks untumbling words of sweet mother comfort.
Now the chicks will live on Lazy Mountain with Sherri.
They will sit under a heat lamp.
They will discover seed.
They will scamper as the turkeys strut past.
The turkeys will grow to be that impressive.
The chicks will follow the turkeys someday --
through the birch and aspen --
mouths wide open, seeing just far to the turkey's tail,
Why look up?
Run, grow, live.
xo Palmer...
Though the mountains were taller now, 1000 feet taller at least. 3000.
New England has had this effect.
On the Glenn Highway, you never getting anywhere.
The mountains make your miles inches.
You try transit anyway.
Construction -- the same as always -- mud, dust.
Wait for the Pilot Car, turn off the engine, wait.
The wait is dusty.
The hawks circle lazy circles.
The river is taking the bank in Sutton.
The papers say it so this if fact.
Neighbors pull out valuables and toxics as the water rises.
The owner of the house is stuck in jail,
cannot assist with evacuation.
He killed his wife.
The paper gives no details of the murder but the 60-year sentence and that
the Borough promised a dumpster for neighbors for the toxins.
The dumpster has not arrived.
A cat runs along the shoulder, Calico, a girl, by genetic necessity.
She glances over her shoulder for the hawk
which wheels slowly in the blue, which was once a just a chick in a nest
mouth wide open, like all of us.
Yesterday Sherri rescued some chicks from US Mail.
They survived four days of transit, but barely,
bumped, dumped, tumbled in dark, the clerk told Sherri.
Sherri tends them in the night,
kneels by their box, speaks untumbling words of sweet mother comfort.
Now the chicks will live on Lazy Mountain with Sherri.
They will sit under a heat lamp.
They will discover seed.
They will scamper as the turkeys strut past.
The turkeys will grow to be that impressive.
The chicks will follow the turkeys someday --
through the birch and aspen --
mouths wide open, seeing just far to the turkey's tail,
Why look up?
Run, grow, live.
xo Palmer...