My Meadowlark

I worry that the first offer 

of my potential reincarnation 

would be a bluejay. 

It’s my old life’s namesake after all. 

A screaming, 

wild-haired thief 

who bugs squirrels 

and steals food from others. 

But I think, 

no, I feel, 

I have a responsibility

to be a western meadowlark. 

They’re smaller than jays, 

substantially so,

yellow and white and brown and speckled and so achingly delicate looking, 

almost fragile. 

I would like to open my eyes 

and be bobbing softly 

on the bend of some wheat, 

clutched tight in less-than-becoming feet. 

I would flick my head in the sunlight 

and feel the warmth 

that only comes from a Rocky Mountain Valley summer’s day. 

Maybe I would test my wings, 

catching these quick, cooling breezes 

and finding my footing once more 

between barbed wire coils when I seek rest. 

Perhaps a familiar soccer field will sprawl before me, 

the air filled with the yelps 

of children’s poor communication 

and the smell 

of dry-rotted silicone jerseys. 

I would shuffle down the fence 

to find a better view. 

Perhaps, 

and truthfully, 

I hope this most of all, 

a little girl will be concealed 

within the goalie box, 

picking fistfuls of grass

and wholly uninterested 

with the chaos on the other end of the field. 

Her hair will be in too-tight ponytails, 

a halo of flyaways 

caught and illuminated 

in the steadily setting sun. 

She will look at me 

and we will recognize each other. 

A quiet “Hi.”

And in a voice 

like new ponderosa needles 

budding and opening in fans,

like the whistles of stormy wind 

sweeping through each crevice 

of Canyon Ferry, 

like stars blinking awake 

in gentle night’s darkness, 

I will answer.