Poems by J.C. Todd
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Urban Birds
April 25, 2017, Center City Philadelphia
by J.C. Todd
From Canary Spring 2018
J.C. lives in the Delaware Direct watershed, .6 miles west of the Delaware River, on a low rise that, in Colonial times, drained into the riverine marshes surrounding the Philadelphia city docks. The trees of neighborhood cemeteries and parks attract owls, hawks, and woodpeckers as well as sparrows, finches, robins, crows and other Mid-Atlantic urban regulars.
cloud-heavy false dawn
Sonny on the bridge, his hard bop
this robin’s broke song
knob on a gnarled branch
redtail perches, old graveyard
a new killing field
rain all day, pots filled
mint soaked to its roots, sipping
at cat’s bowl—house finch
alley of leafing pears
azaleas popping, thrush wobbling
tattered wing, no tail
© J.C. Todd