THE LORE OF DAEDALUS AND MY FATHER was published in a print edition of Bathtub Gin.

Black oil sunflower, millet, and peanut hearts/ slide through the fingers as smoothly as water/ warmed beneath the bright winter sun./ A finch stands on stiff scaled legs—/ sharp toes in seeds six feet high above/ the frozen ground: a sea of frothy snow/ littered by barbs of black thistle slipping/ through the mesh of a feeder stocking./ As he cocks his head to a swift shadow above,/ the sun illuminates a path of pollengold feathers/ rippling along his twisted neck./ Immobile, he takes flight in the talons of a goshawk./ And two become one at the bird feeder in winter.

Author’s Note: This poem, a stanza of which is excerpted here, was based on a story borrowed (with permission) from a friend whose father nursed a sick rooster back to health in her childhood home. If you watch them intently enough, I think you’ll see that birds probably have a guiding mythology all their own.