Francolin Dawn

If I were Mary Oliver,

I would know exactly what to write

about the francolin

who stood outside my screen door

at dawn,

calling loud and absurd,

like a feathery drill sergeant,

yanking me out of the dark.

There she is,

standing bold in the muted daylight,

yelling at my door

with the kind of certainty

I rarely feel.

And I,

reluctant,

barefoot,

blinking.

The bird stares.

Then,

having said her piece,

she runs off,

as francolins do,

like a downy little dinosaur,

with a hurried blessing

and a rattle of alarm and joy.

I know the script.

Move, stretch, breathe.

Walk the mind.

Search for words that expose

the tender spine of each feather,

the simple humanity in a 

wake up call on a gray

and grief-soaked morning.

To rise.

To listen.

It would be easier

to stay folded in the dim,

to let the day pass

without asking anything of me,

to believe this heaviness

is all there is.

But as the day lightens,

the mynahs chatter

and a mongoose peers

from her hiding place

in the cane grass.

A tickle,

like a feather,

moves in one vein,

and then another.

I reach for my pen and notebook

and follow her call

into my wild life,

my precious life.