“Scissor-tailed Flycatcher”
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Our hands were calloused once,
the birds would flit in fields,
chasing grasshoppers off perches.
Those fields were plowed
by grandfathers,
by their grandfathers,
tilled by their horses,
and planted with our foods
in an Oklahoma freshly wounded
by wars and broken treaties.
We were busy running from
countries that no longer felt like home,
too busy rebuilding our families
to notice how the soil we dug
had been taken from a people
whose lives had become
defined by their deaths,
a people who never had the luxury
to find themselves too busy to care.
Still, the birds respected us then,
in our collective mourning.
They were here before,
in an uninhabited and hostile land.
They were here when we marched
our shame into this place,
when it was easier to pretend that
some people aren’t worthy of respect.
If they knew the truth,
they never showed it.
I wonder if flycatchers tell the tales,
if they gather to hear about the time
before the fenceposts,
when the fields were filled with
butterflies and grasshoppers.
I wonder if they cast us as the villains,
if they can see who we really are.
I wonder when they learned about us,
when they began to see our cruelty.
They are moving northward,
the fields still full of food,
away from the children
of the children of the children,
too many generations to understand
this place or to love the land,
away from the deceptions,
away from the delusions,
away from the cowardice.
I’m waiting for Spring,
and I’m watching the fields
for the dancing grey birds,
while they still visit us here,
and I wonder what we have learned,
and how much we still lie to ourselves.
Written 7 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Scissor-tailed Flycatcher” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
It’s been a stormy weekend, which I love. The rest of the week felt a little chaotic, but life in general seems a little chaotic right now. I did start working on an art project, which I hadn’t done in a very long time! I’m excited about it, but more I’m excited to just get a few things done finally.