Poetry by Stephen J. Cribari
Two years ago we had peregrine falcons here.
They bred in a nest under a nearby bridge
That spans the Mississippi River. I
Stood riverside the day the three chicks fledged
Dropping from the bridge’s understructure,
Falling in a wild, flailing descent
And finding just before they hit the river
What wings mean, solving the secret code
That opened a doorway into the halls of the sky.
A month later curious I returned.
The empty nest, but there up in the sky
High up in the sky a black speck
Like a piece of protein floating across the eye
But reaching speeds that edged beyond my vision.
Like a thunderbolt loosed from the sky it bolted down,
Leveled to a plane above the river,
Screamed through the bridge’s latticed understructure
Then turned as bolting horse will dead stop turn
And flaring into the bridge’s latticework
Settled on the beam where its nest had been.
And there it began to preen, as if nothing at all
Let alone something utterly extraordinary
Had just happened. And I thought of you.
Stephen J. Cribari has been writing poetry for over sixty years. In a parallel life he was a criminal defense attorney and law professor. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Still Life (2020) and Delayed en Route (2022) are published by Lothrop Street Press.
