A Bird’s Song

~ Cosimo Giovine

Majestic—bejeweled:

Red gorgets shine like shields—black-tipped, dipped in gold.

Courting bluebirds stir the swarming insects into the sun’s rays.

 

A fluffy-feathered sparrow swoops down and pounces

on the ground, up with an earthworm. A lark swoops down

And pounces, up with an empty beak, then shrills upwards.

 

A boy, bubbling and toddling, grasps his daddy’s fingers,

Hears a bird’s song, spots the flicking wings

Among the leaves. They clap in bejeweled majesty.

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Published by Cosimo Giovine

Cosimo Giovine (he/him/his) earned an MFA, Fiction from Columbia University (2003), taught in high schools and colleges from 1992 until 2012, and is the publisher at Zio Apollo Press since 2012. His writing has appeared in Glimmer Train Magazine, “Dream Book” (Glimmer Train 2007), Close Up: Poems on Cancer, Grief, Hope, and Healing, “Last Spring” (Orchard Lea Books 2022), and San Diego Poetry Annual 2024-2025, “A Bird’s Song” (San Diego Poetry Annual 2024). Currently, Cosimo promotes literacy and learning as a library assistant. And when he’s not at the library, he’s reworking a line of poetry, reading something new, or promoting a good book.