Songbird Soup

Songbird Soup
Collecting at dawn
calm after the savage of storms.
Flat-footed he walks. Silent.
First, the starling,
a multiverse upon his chest,
placed reverently in hessian.
A scarlet-hatted cardinal comes next,
discovered beneath pre-religious pine.
A twig cracks
and those that live cloud to the skies.
Jay has already died,
mocking ceased
by wind and rain
and tumultuous wrath.
Barefoot treads the wood-strewn path
floating above discarded needles
he feels no pain.
His search now is for Dear Kitty
believed drowned in hail.
Bag full, he lays them to rest as he prepares the pot.
Some he’ll bake,
some will sing again in bubbling broth.