TSUNAMIS OF THE UNEXPECTED
Pink Bird of Paradise
An ode to my happy place every summertime
Pink bird of paradise, many Septembers ago
one thousand and eight of you staked
your claim to the city.
1008 flamingos in a land of cheeseheads!
I love surfing such tsunamis of the unexpected.
One black flamingo — perhaps the world’s only –
amidst a flamboyance of pale pink
on a Cyprus beach.
Leaps of leopards, convocations of eagles, exultations of larks,
wisdoms of wombats and a creature of LA
who fled the Midwest not long after you arrived –
then, two decades later, took a leap
and changed her spots.
Like you, exultantly flocking to the city yearly.
Where you’ll find her, singing, hip-high in beds
of prairie phlox, coneflowers, milkweed, and wood violet –
unfailingly astonished
by her bettered ability to balance, even on one leg,
and her longer, more agile neck’s willingness
to feast upside down upon grace.
