Flicker Flash, By Mauree McKaen

This just in.
Along Longfellow Creek
this morning
all is well
with the world.
A bright sun
glistens
on frosted dew.
Indian Plum
bursts impossibly forth
in white blossom and
in the distance
a lone Flicker drums
a tall spare deadwood.
Just blocks away
machines made by men
also flicker to life
as City dwellers
robotically start them up
to suck up
that first of their
daily downer doses,
which, obliterating
any sense of
dawn and dusk,
leave only
drive times mostly
to bookend
desperate days.
But here
above the laughing stream
the authentic Flicker lifts off,
a flash of brilliant orange blaze
splitting the morning blue sky,
and below him
a vibrant young mallard
and his mate
ride a middling current
down a meandering stream.


6 March 09
Seattle