R.K. Leantis - Bird On A Wire

Highway 51.
Mid-day
long drive
tired and ready for sleep.
The road is flat
with fast moving,
staggered lines at the bottom of my door.
They grow longer,
blurring into one rail of white.
Telephone poles
edge the road.
Old ones,
withered pieces of wood standing
like crosses for the dead.
Crooked and leaning opposite of each other,
they are a hitchcockian nightmare.
The wires are
pulled tight between them.
A squirrels' tightwire,
holding up the endless Atlas
to a not-so-modern form of communication.
I move by them,
their shadows strobing in the corner of my eye.

A bird stands in the road ahead of me
picking at day old roadkill.
I should honk
but I don't.
the small creature
will know my existence
soon enough while
wedged in my front grill.
I have been blessed
with this murderous,
rumbling machine beneath my ass.
But I must be accountable somewhere.
My approach frightens the little bird.
I have interrupted his meal.
Quickly flying out of sight,
he was smart to fly away when he did.
Next time,
standing in the road,
pecking for that last bite of food
for one extra second too long,
closing the margins of escape too close together,
my little friend will die from the impact
of a truck driver's windshield
or under the tire of a soccer mom's SUV
full of kids and on their way to a game.

But I cut through their air.
driving faster than I am
intended to be moving,
I steal the breath of these
wild animals.
They are wild but I'm wilder.

Line the man made perches,
you victims of our self-proclaimed wilderness.
Stand witness to my species
and our endless parade of hurriedness.
Line our highways and perch on our posts.
While listening, we refuse to hear your call.

R.K. Leantis

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bird-on-a-wire/