From 12 years ago

                             RAINY DAY

It rained all day in Connecticut
and New York City too, my daughter told me
on the phone tonight.

What else she told me was that
on her way from the subway to her office,
on, of all streets, 17th Street,
she saw a blur of yellow on  a windowsill
at sidewalk level.

She turned back and found a parakeet
with her head under her wing,
more yellow than green,
and found a box in the trash of 17th Street
and took the bird--after a struggle--
to work with her, stopping on the way,
somewhere I can't imagine where,
to buy a cage and some food and,
though she didn't mention it,
a water bottle, I'm sure.

She spent lots of the day on the internet--
and found out Rainy was a girl,
because of the color above  her beak,
and put a message on Craig's list (whatever that is)
that brought her a dozen calls about missing
parakeets.

None of them, after descriptions were given,
turned out to be Rainy.
So, my daughter, most likely, now has a parakeet.

I'm left wondering how a dozen people in a piece of
Manhattan, could allow
their parakeets to escape on a rainy day
in April.

And even more, I'm left wondering,
if a dozen people who lost birds
were looking on Craig's List to find th em,
how may birds were truly lost
this rainy day?
I think of them--wet feathered, frightened,
shivering on windowsills, trashcans
and the just budding trees of the East Side,
heads under their wings,
longing for home.
(Who doesn't know the feeling of 'being lost',
damp wing across our face,
longing for home?)

And I'm left wondering,
most of all,
if I did something right in my life
to have a daughter who'd
spend her day trying to find 'home'
and t hen providing one
for a wet bird she named Rainy
in honor of
this wet April Monday?

jgb--4/28/09