Feeding the Birds

By John Kaufman

for W.S. Merwin

Here in the city we try to remember
the birds, offering seed to nourish
nothing but flight and song.

We have sown plants and trees
to nullify the lawn and streets
a little, restore the forest and farms.

And when the gulls fly by I always
look up, hungry for the inner sea
the city cannot diminish, and the

ocean far to the east and west whose rising
reminds us that we are beasts
who can drift a long way from home.