Flying north, a war story

No one told the birds
in Arizona that Kiev is burning,
that soldiers ripped doors
from their hinges and blew out
the windows in somebody’s
kitchen before the warm ball
of bread could rise. The sun
comes up in Tucson and the
mourning doves fill their bellies
with song.

The birds have fled St. Petersburg
and not returned because
they cannot carry this terrible
cold in their bones—only crows
and ravens remain on rooftops;
their cries are sniper fire—they are
always awake; they turn in the wind
to show us the weather.
They will never be known
for their music.

In love and oblivious,
an Arctic tern drops a fish
at the feet of his mate. How many
times will they fly to the Cape
of Good Hope only to see another
fledgling fall from the sky?
They know they can only feed
what holds the will to live.
Still, they stand together on the ice
with Argentina in their eyes.

The largest owl in the world
is endangered—fewer than four
hundred Blakiston’s fish owls
living like whispers in Russia’s
far east. Rumors of six-foot
wingspans reach as far as Ukraine,
where children lie quiet as mines
in their beds. Their mothers call
out in their sleep, guarding the dark
with the sound of owls.

My mother nearly named me
Anastasia. So beautiful, she said,
though it’s not our native tongue.
I never knew the fish owl’s name
until today, or Yulia, the old woman
shot where she knelt in her squash
garden, clucking at roots still curled
in the earth. We are endangered.
In a dream, I fly north for the spring,
find the nest of a passenger pigeon.

I shield the small egg with my body.
I say, I’m sorry. Please come back.