with twenty-seven solar panels and two Tesla batteries I’ve snapped one chain of the world that has held me captive for years electricity look, I can take my free arm, run around the house, flick on fans and lights, lower the air-conditioning to hotel room levels if I want I feel like laughing, smugly like a kid with a new toy that no one else on the block has, wanting to brag and gloat, feel the envy and jealousy but most say Nice or Good for you, none admiring me li

you know those legendary birds of ravaged corn fields, evil prediction and death as a murder of crows well here flies their bigger, blacker, bolder cousins, together, an unkindness of ravens a name not always applicable, because today I watched four of them hop around, bow to each other with head feathers fluffed forward then hop and curtsey some more though the thing I most admired in this rare raven-learning moment - they didn’t care who was watching

the ear-splitting screams of a mockingbird trigger an old dream of holding a hummingbird in my hand popcorn light, its husk of feathers, hollow of life, toes curled around the last twig, still held in their grasp I turn the bird over, egg white eyes, throat a purple fantasy, the iridescence dances in the twist of light . . . nearly crashing into another walker, I snap out of my trance I’m so sorry oven like, the sun reminds me to keep moving and pay attention,