Feathered Friends

Hello my friends
so nice you visit

bouncing
strutting round me
preening
stretching out
in a flutter
of feathered wings

your flits
and chirps
and twitters
and coos
bring this old man
great joy

your vitality
soothes my soul

me
here grounded

hobbled
but for a few steps
painful steps
with cane always in hand

mostly confined
to my favorite chair

with my needles
and vials
and constant
bloody finger pricks
glucose test strips

my mechanics of survival

at every waking
every sleeping
and every meal

pricked
and punctured

6 times total
every day

but also
my daily joy
with my favorite friends
when you visit

I know my feeding you
is your prime motivator

but you kindly linger
moving easy and gentle
‘round me
close

know for certain
my feathered friends

this lonely old man
appreciates it
greatly

I love you for it
birds

but I’ll tell you a secret
I want so to fly
it’s my fantasy
my freedom dream

arms spread straight out
feeling the lift

and to feel
the thrill of the swoop
caught up in my freedom dream

to pierce through the clouds
speeding
like a laser beam

feel the wind
ruffle my feathers

zoom high — above rooftops
to be weightless
to feel no stress
so high — above rooftops

riding the thermals
as all my fear stops
swept up in happiness

so much I’d see
I’d feel so free
soaring in giddiness

oh — could I but glide
through the clouds
like you do
birds

in free flight
lifted on mighty thermals
no longer earthbound
not a captive of gravity
relieved of anxiety
free of my agonies

but I am captive
to my failing heart
to my cane
to my chair
to my bloody pricks
of my fingertips

to my needles
so many many needles

but each day
when you leave me
it is truly thrilling
to experienc you
flap your wings
lift
and fly off to freedom

sometimes
I envy you your freedom
I envy you your feathers
and your hollow bones

yes
I envy you
but I love you
I wish I were you

so fly
fly my friends
fly

my heart is with you

*
rob kistner © 2023

Poetry at: The Sunday Muse