SOMEDAY I WILL LEARN

​Foster hudson

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someday i will learn to love the bird
​
who pecks each morning at my window
like a beggar
and pulls me from my dreams.

for now i’ve given her a name
against my better judgement,
and i call her “gloria”
when she caws.

i’ve researched into her breed; i believe
she is a turtledove.
it brings us closer to identify
each other.

now it seems
she expects me to wave
before i shoe her away:
though to me it seems they are
one and the same.

gloria wakes me
just before the sun rises,
no matter the season.
i know the orange
swaths of dawn so well,
thanks to her.

she arrives only then,
with the big star glowing
behind her, as if she wants me
to see her in her best light.

but i am always too groggy to care
about her beauty. she is only a bird;
how can she be so material anyway?
she is already beautiful
in her own way.

sometimes i think this is why
gloria appears: so she can show me
the beauty of things
like the morning light through the trees,
or the softness of her white wings.
​
but gloria is just a bird, unaware
of such things as beauty and dawn.
she pecks not for love or concern,
only in the hopes that one day
i might bring her some bird seed.