Showing the Birds

Look, children, here is the shy,
flightless dodo; the many-colored
pigeon named the passenger, the
great auk, the esquimo curlew, the
woodpecker called the Lord God Bird,
the....

Come, children, hurry -- there are so many
more beautiful things to show you in
the museum's dark drawers.
-- Mary Oliver

Letting the Grass Grow Under Your Feet

It would rather not
     but of course it will.
          If you've tried standing on it
long enough, those blades
     will insist on a way out
          from under and up at last
into the light. You don't
     have to let it do that
          because it will. No matter how
stubbornly or heavily you bear down,
     something inside its cells
          doesn't believe in you
and your latent energy,
     your postponements of action,
          your useless indecision. It will grow
sideways and turn yellow or under pressure
     nearly white. It will turn
          to an almost all uprooted root for a while,
then send those blades (in spite
     of how long you stand in the way)
          up and around you.
-- David Wagoner