The cost of flight is landing.
                          Jim Harrison

Six crows in the sky just when
Sunday tolls; must be an omen

of something. Roses galore
on the climbing vine—miraculous

having been barren last year. Nest
under the eaves of my art studio, they

come back each spring. Blue jay snaps
his sharp beak             clack    clack   
 
at these juncos protecting their young.
Another year of paintbrushes and

wings. Birds are elusive abstractions.

Virginia Barrett’s work has most recently appeared in Poetry of Resistance: A Multicultural Anthology in Response to Arizona SB 1070 (University of Arizona Press), Midnight Circus, The Fem, Belle Reve, and Apple Valley Review. She is the editor of two anthologies of contemporary San Francisco poets including OCCUPY SF—poems from the movement. She is the recipient of a 2017 writer’s residency grant from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.