The Migration
Pittsburgh, PA
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
i was in bed with my husband
when the fire started.
he is an eagle;
born all lanky, and awkward-like.
i, a blue jay,
dignified, but also awkward-like,
in my own way.
i didn’t find out from the radio,
nor from the yelps of neighbors with burnt tails and feet.
i found out from my child:
a 3-a.m. alarm, crying, “mama! pretty colors!”
we started packing, frantically.
two-weeks-worth of mealworm, check.
birdseed, check.
phone charger, check.
three packages of water, check.
perhaps, my baby assumed that
the fire’s beauty was too overwhelming
for our dumb little bird eyes.
and, just like that,
we started to fly,
with the ocean in sight.
we flew over mountainous cliffs,
over suburban neighborhoods,
but it just kept going, and going,
like an annoying song stuck in
the head of the earth.
my husband noticed my agitation.
“the landscaping isn’t bad!
i like its orange hues.
what do you think, honest?”
to be honest? honest.
it reminds me of…
a newborn baby’s first puke, dried onto carpet?
a little bug; squished on pavement and baking in its hot sun?
but i just can’t bear to
ruffle those feathers.
“it’s lovely, sweetie!”
Reflection
I decided to write about a bird’s forced migration due to wildfires, but blurring the line between birds and humans to create a sense of relevance and closeness for the reader. For example, in the stanza in which the protagonist is packing for her evacuation, she lists birdseed as well as a phone charger. The poem represents the innocence or, in some cases, ignorance, of certain demographics surrounding the climate crisis, in contrast with the panic of the youth and of scientists. The husband and child’s peacefulness, and somewhat satirical positivity, counteracts the mother’s franticness towards the situation.