R.S. Stewart

Tipton Poetry Journal – Summer 2021

Bird Psychology

R.S. Stewart

Only a bird can figure out why it hops along a fence when it would rather fly across a field. Happenstance

is probably not a factor, but when a schooled ornithologist bares down to the forked toe of the foot of a wood thrush

to note again that an avian direction and decision are somewhat superior to a human assumption, sequential questions pop up about birds and their ears,

eyes, and brains. Capacities run deep, deep as psyches in the afterglow of discovery. The pelican’s, the heron’s beak

has that more than half-harried look while alighting on a post, wading a river bend. In their element is where birds spend most

of their better hours when not searching for nesting spots, not curious about the human on the bank, up a tree, peering through the spy glass.

R.S. Stewart, who lives in western Oregon, has published in many journals in both the U.S. and Europe, most recently in The Dark Horse (Scotland). Two poems are forthcoming in The Wallace Stevens Journal.