pocket parrots, a pocketful of miracles

mural art by mariah fox

www.mariahfox.com

In a parrot tree there is a family of pocket parrots. We watch them with the many students of our summer camp in Port Maria, Jamaica. I ask the students to write poems about the tiny, green-leaved, emerald-winged birds, and they do. They write beautiful poems.

And this is the one I wrote with them on that day in August when the pretty pocket full of miracle pocket parrots flew from their nest for the first time. The next day they were gone.

***

The pocket parrots come to the edge of their hollow almond tree,
a nestling, nook nest, and I can hear their twitters and squeaks
and sharp notes of joy -- "Come, brothers and sisters
there is so much to say, to see!"

When they leave their nest for the first time this August
after Independence Day in Jamaica, I realize
we too will soon be going back to New Mexico.
"Look," I say to Lorry, there is so much
to see, to say!"

Blue Harbour, 1987