I’ve been gathering feathers for years now.
I keep these few in the miniature vases
of which I am so fond on the sill
of the window where I work in winter.
This has been their appointed spot
for a long while. Normally, my eyes
focus beyond them at the scene behind
the spruce’s boughs or at the boughs themselves
where sometimes a bird will light for a moment.
But the cold of the day has glazed the window
with sheets of ice and a garland of frost, directing
my gaze at the feathers, and I think how I love them
and the birds who gave them to me and the images
of birds they evoke in my mind, and the beautiful feeling
of freedom.