The Bird on the Sidewalk

I found a bird on the sidewalk
Just outside of the hospital
The new building of the hospital
The Busse Center (or is it Centre?)

I couldn't tell if it was live
Or dead (the bird, that is
For a hospital is certainly
Both alive and dead at the same

Time, especially when you hear
Code blue or the music that's
Played when a new baby is born
And it’s cute when it plays

Two or three times in a row
And you finally “get it” and
Realize that, congratulations!
It’s twins or triplets)

The poor bird, though, was just
Lying on the sidewalk, and I
Couldn’t tell if it was dead or simply
Stunned like the parrot in the

Monty Python skit (“it’s stunned,
You stunned it”, “the Norwegian
Blue loves kippin’ on it’s back”,
“It’s pinin’ for the fjords”, “It’s
Not pinin’, it’s passed on”) from

What, thirty-three years ago? That
Would be at Northern Illinois
University in 1974, a freshman
Destined never ever to graduate

And now it’s too late, but for
The bird it might not be, so I
Place it, gently, underneath a bit
Of shrubbery, protected from

Others walking by who might
Throw it in the trash, so that
Maybe it wakes up and lives . . .
Just like the rest of us

A Poem :: Sonnet

Sonnet

The late Gracie Allen was a very lucid comedienne,
Especially in the way that lucid means shining and bright.
What her husband George Burns called her illogical logic
Made a halo around our syntax and ourselves as we laughed.

George Burns most often was her artful inconspicuous straight man.
He could move people about stage, construct skits and scenes, write
And gather jokes. They were married as long as ordinary magic
Would allow, thirty-eight years, until Gracie Allen's death.

In her fifties Gracie Allen developed a heart condition.
She would call George Burns when her heart felt funny and fluttered
He'd give her a pill and they'd hold each other till the palpitation
Stopped - just a few minutes, many times and pills. As magic fills
Then fulfilled must leave a space, one day Gracie Allen's
heart fluttered
And hurt and stopped. George Burns said unbelievingly to the doctor,
"But I still have some of the pills."

Alice Notley