Watercolor of Two Cranes

Unhinge your landing gear

in shallow shoals. Scissor

air, wings warning,

webbed feet dredged in silt

deep as time, iris tilted

skyward, a ringed target

of defiance. You’re still

all pterodactyl beneath

those pewter feathers damp

as fog. Not even Audubon

with palette and brush

was able to wrest you

from flight. Persistence

is nature; to fly, to fight.