Poetry by Arthur Ginsberg
birdsong
pours through the open window.
I cannot know
if the suet I hung yesterday
fills them with joy,
or if, the handsome male in the maple
is wooing the female
in the condominium next door,
or if, it is simply
dawn that fills them with happiness—
nuthatch and goldfinch
perched on the feeder,
orchard bees swooning,
deep in trumpets of columbine,
the way I am lifted
out of darkness by a Mozart aria
to a place of rapture.
All these avian melodies
soaring from the throats
of feathered angels
that make a man want to fly.
Arthur Ginsberg is a neurologist and poet. He earned an MFA at Pacific University and has published five books of poetry. He teaches a course titled, “Brain and the Healing Power of Poetry” in the honors program at the University of Washington.
