A Bird's Life

Early morning.
Raucous parakeet
Negotiations.
Cleaning house.
Shouting orders.
Making borders.
I am here.
You stay there.
Each man’s perch,
his cage

Feathered jade.
Sapphire desire,
fleeting, desperate, quick
as all get out
Of me. Before
You know it,
You’ve spilled
your seed and
everything’s a mess.

The doves arrive
for brunch and wait
along the wall.
Caged
neon emissaries
peck solemn salutations
In yesterday’s hulls
And wonder.

Why do the
dull-coated birds
fly free?
How far is up?
Is the garden flat?
Or round?
Palm fronds sigh.
Water giggles.

Yellow bird
pushes eggs out
the nest, her right
to choose, the
only choice
left.

~~ Elodie Pritchartt





In California I had an aviary in the backyard filled with parakeets. I wrote this at a time I was feeling a bit trapped. At the time, I was doing a writing exercise called 100 Words where I would write 100 words -- no more; no less -- every day for one month.

I don't have the self-discipline to actually do it every single day for a month, but I did get a few interesting things out of it. And I've since reedited it, so now it has 105 words.

For any of you who are writers (it doesn't have to be poetry. Just 100 words in any form), you can see the 100 words website here:

http://www.100words.com/about.php