POEM OF THE WEEK: A Feather

BY HARRY WAITZMAN

from what bird? Shape and song
will tell. A child slides off her bike when
she spots the heron and rushes to speak to it
before boys throw rocks and yell.

She strokes a white feather caught
on a bramble and is lifted over the lake
higher than honking geese, past swans
which surf the billowing clouds.

I sharpen a quill and write the child’s initials
across the sky with invisible ink. After gathering
pickerelweed, I count love’s feathers on the wings
of a goose.