Fledglings
Thomas O. Grady
This morning, their herky
jerky walk in the meadow
cut short by the shock
of who knows what, a flock
of newly fledged wild turkeys
startled the sky in an upward
burst of clattering wings,
young feathers stiff as quills,
and flew like shards of shrapnel
into springtime's thickening leafage
by the pond. They rattled
the world like clashing sabres.
Life is hard. Theirs and ours.
The air around us shook all day.
Thomas O'Grady