The Day Of Birds / Poem by Richard Oyama

 The Day of Birds

I dream a miniature horse with dragonfly wings
Half-Pegasus, half-Tinkerbell, shining.
It’s my guide when day is done, the day of birds
A flock of hummingbirds, iridescent green neckband
Figure-8 wings, nectar sweetness. The day sounds with
A cowbird’s 40-note solo, a nightgale’s all-
Night wooing, the knockknock of the woodpecker’s
Acorn habitat. It’s the fall of day, fire flaring over the gulf
Into a blue night when you can see ultraviolet. 
The tiny horse flies you home to a green green sea.
A necklace of lights shimmers along the shore. There is
Nothing of which I am afraid. 

    No longer human no longer old no longer.

Richard Oyama’s poems, stories and essays have appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Breaking Silence, Dissident Song, A Gift of Tongues, About Place, Konch Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Buddhist Poetry Review and other literary journals. He has a M.A. in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Oyama taught at California College of Arts in Oakland, University of California at Berkeley and University of New Mexico.