I almost walked
right by you,
small brown feather,
as you hovered,
shimmied,
vibrated,
suspended
an inch or two above
those river rocks.
I noticed you
but glancingly,
walked on past,
but then came back.
What was that?
And there you were,
a small brown feather,
fffffffluttering wildly,
stuttering on the
bounce of a wild wind,
levitating in place,
blown about
but not away,
a feather windsock,
snagged on the tip
of the merest
hairline-crack of a twig
standing on its end,
stuck in a crevice
among those river rocks.
A small brown feather
chanced to blow by,
chanced to catch
just so on a twig.
Feather and twig,
twig, feather and wind,
thank you for the moment
of magical realism
I almost didn’t see.
Ann Keiffer
June, 2015
