This Poem is for the Birds

by Wendell Hall
(Wallsburg, UT USA)

Mad as a wet hen, a little bird told me,
"It's a fowl thing for poems that reference us

to be as scarce as hen's teeth and it would be

a feather in your cap, a splendid thing... yes...



to crow about, and you'd be sitting in the

catbird seat, killing two birds with just one stone

if, like the early bird that catches the larva—

tastier than worms—you too were a lone



bird—not like those of a feather that flock to-

gether; so eagle-eyed, missing nothing, like

an owl not giving a hoot, you'd swallow two.

One swallow does not a summer make, unlike



two or four or more, as lame ducks may suppose.

"Little bird," I said, looking like the cat that

swallowed the canary, as bird-brained as schmoes,

for calling it small. A feather in its hat,



to birdies that don't get caught like sitting ducks.

A larva in claw is worth two in debouche.

"In the open" it means, instructive, dumb clucks:

"Don't bumble or tumble into booze or hootch."