We are scared. It’s accounting for things
that keeps dying manageable. the little bird
down there in the shadows, darting in and out
among the low branches over the pond,
moves too fast to name. But isn’t that why 
we’ve come, to make our lives a little more orderly,
and where being right or wrong doesn’t matter?
What a blessing to know The Sibley Guide to Birds
will forgive us. To know the nuthatch from the flicker
doesn’t pay the bills or make the Robocop
ticket less egregious, but getting the words
on our tongue swabs our wounds.
If birders on average live ten years longer
than just about everybody else, might it not
explain how we cover our mouths with our hands
and leave our bodies when a Cinnamon Teal
cruises out from the reeds. Birding is a time out
from the heavy lifting of being who we are not.