LUTHER JETT I am a native of Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. My poetry has been published in numerous journals, including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Evening Street, Steam Ticket, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Main Street Rag. My work has also appeared in several anthologies, including “Secrets & Dreams”, Kind of a Hurricane Press; “My Cruel Invention”, Meerkat Press; and “Written in Arlington”, Paycock Press. I am the author of four poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, (Finishing Line Press, 2015), and “Our Situation”, (Prolific Press, 2018), “Everyone Disappears” (Finishing Line Press, 2020), and “Little Wars” (Kelsay Books, 2021).
The Augury of Birds Unexpected rain falls and in the high branches birds flutter to roost — songbirds, indistinguishable against grey distance; crows, beaks open to sound an unheard warning. There darts a jay, bolt of blue amid the needles of the near pine. Rain does not stop this parliament; their little lives go on, autumnal migrations continue, star-bidden. What Tremendum, what untold catastrophe dares silence the songs of birds, stills them in their flight? We who scatter bones in dust know augury is not enough. The waters rise and we imagine we will not drown.
© Luther Jett 2022 January American Poets & Writers © liveencounters.net
