WHAT BIRDS MEAN

with an adaption of a Buddhist saying

But birds are meaningless!
I do not worry about them at all. 

—The Iliad 12:286-287 (trans. by Emily Wilson)

by Hannah Silverstein

Gray feather in snow means grouse hawk-startled 
from hemlock or dog-flushed or early molt. 

Crow barking at crow over rooftops means  
roadkill in the valley or a thermal 

rising above the ridge or else an eagle 
or else the neighbor out again with chainsaw or .22. 

Three-pronged track in December mud means turkey 
strutting, means understory 

pecked clean of seed and tick and bud. 
Cat-bell jingle means a mouthful of sparrow. 

If the future is certain, why worry?
If the future is uncertain, why worry?

Below-zero nights, chickadees huddle together 
in tree nooks, exchanging steamy puffs.

Hannah Silverstein is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. A 2021 Best of the Net finalist, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Passengers Journal, Passages North, Barnstorm Journal, Dialogist, Orange Blossom Review, West Trestle Review, LEON Literary Review, Whale Road Review, and others. She lives in Vermont.