One of us

Corralled into an empty shed, some of us still caged.
Fur and feather, feather and fur, a piebald maelstrom.
Jump, fly, move up, find a space, still they come.

Some begin to whimper, some mutter, lean back on
scrawny necks and cry for their gods,
or squawk through feathered throat.

A few have let their gaze drop to the ground
but the rest of us share the vigilant eye. The moving eye
with big pupils darting, ever watchful.

We watch, we wait, we are forced closer, fur on feather,
feather on fur. We start to share our own language.
We are life in its own arrangement of parts.