The Grackle Poem by Francis Poole

I was about to cross
the wooden footbridge
over the mill race
when a large Grackle
landed heavily at eye level
on the branch of a nearby bush
and pitched up and down
like a diver on a spring board.

I don't know
what a Grackle thinks, if anything,
or if it knows how high
humans can fly
from just watching a bird
but he lowered his purple head
then leaned forward
shoulders drawn in, tail up
as if challenging me
to leap with him
into something really big
and really cool
like the whole sky.

His yellow eye widened
as he waited for me to rise
from the ground.
Then he gave me a look that said,
You fools know nothing
of our magic,
and vanished in an iridescent
puff of smoke
while I stood there frozen, inept
and stoned as I was.