BIRDS AT PLAY

BIRDS AT PLAY

Birds at play on the lawn,

With their worms and their twigs and their chirping.

Birds at work in the trees,

With their spouses, their young, and their merriment.

Birds at play, in the world of the Spring,

With their pecking, trilling, and hopping.

Doing their specialized form of be-bopping

To the music of the sunny blue.

Birds at play,

Cheering the way,

For the lives of me and you,

The robin with his red breast trills a happy tune,

While the nightingale comes after dark to serenade the moon.

Birds at play in their treetop flats,

Devouring worms, avoiding cats.

Birds at play in the trees, ignoring human folly,

Making daydreams come alive, our waking moments jolly.

Birds at play on the lawn,

With their worms and their twigs and their chirping.

'

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2026

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PENINSULA

PENINSULA

I want to die on a peninsula,
Or better yet an island,
Removed from civilization,
Surrounded by water and sand.

I want to die a free man,
Away from the mechanical and mean,
Where arrogant doctors cannot reach me,
With their paddles and their machines.

I want to live on a peninsula,
Or better yet an island.
Surrounded by a few close friends,
And the space to say goodbye in.
To soar with the gulls above the sea,
To hear them call me tenderly,
Teaching the earth a song to sing,
To complete its turn around the sun,
To comfort it before I'm done
Before I spread my gilded wings 
Somewhere close to Saturn's ring.

I want to walk around on my peninsula,
Thoughtful and alone,
Until the rightful owners come
To knock me off my throne.
Gleefully they will pummel me,
May even knock me down,
Until I fall right off my island
And in its waters drown.
Mercifully I will die and mercifully rise,
In my island paradise,
Framed by the bluest skies.

I want to live and not hesitate,
To die and gladly levitate,
To float with grace in hallowed space
With nothing in between,
Nothing but the water,
And the cool volcanic green.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED