SALVAGE OPERATION
Finding so much poetry
in the dismantling of an owl
I could cry:
the skin and plumage torn away
in strenuous disarray
to save the cradled skeleton
in all its artful disunity
the entire carcass stripped of
its glorious feathers
glistening muscles peeled away
that flung this bird through air
in exquisite freedom
that flamboyant flight
tied to these unlikely parts
muscles laid upon sinews
feathered hand fastened to
thin silvered slips of bones
all fitted supremely to function
beauty even in the sad fluid
spilled from sunken eyes
the rainbow hues of tendons
there are such secrets here
the nakedness and slender shape
astonishing structured melodies . . .
I weep for what I cannot express.
January 1992, Robert W. Nero