Dear Zack Block, Editor, Squawk Back:
The sparrows in my yard have become too domesticated. Whenever the bird feeder's empty, they tap loudly on the front panel until I come out with more seed. The birds fly into the nearby apple trees and sit and watch me refill the feeder, wait until I leave before descending in noisy flocks to crowd on the porch railing once more. If I was patient enough, I think I could train them to land on me instead of the feeder and eat straight out of my outstretched, cupped hands full of tiny millet seeds. But then I wouldn't be able to use my hands for typing, and I wouldn't have been able to write the enclosed poems.
Holly Day
Short bio: Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes in the Minneapolis school district. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai'i Pacific Review, The Oxford American, and Slipstream, and she is a recent recipient of the Sam Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her book publications include Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar-All-in-One for Dummies, and Music Theory for Dummies, which has recently been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese. |
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