Taking Birds Apart
Here an article suggests
that if one takes various birds apart
an owl’s eardrum is bigger than all the rest.
This celebration imports to our kids cartloads
of bird parts: bird
wings, bird feet, bird beaks. Lungs, livers, hearts.
Across the nation boys —and girls!— American nerds
slicing and dicing the American aviary
for the sake of Curiosity, Inquiry, and Measurement: Herds
of thought that, taken apart, feed
us our quidnunc of nourishment,
our two teaspoons of dalliance, shove a beak
to ours, lurching for our lunch, the nourishment
of the moment leading to the doorstep of sleep.
We step in; face the music, the poetry, and the supplements
to minds annexed, superposed, used as sheep
to the owl’s eye, a part played out,
a story read, a song sung with nary a peep.