CONFESSION

by Susan Barry-Schulz

The life of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo, and who died this past Friday outside a building on the Upper West Side, can be divided into two main chapters. Chapter 1 spanned nearly thirteen years, mostly in the zoo—first in the Temperate Territory near the snow leopards and red pandas, and later opposite the loud chiming of the Delacorte Clock. The second started when Flaco spotted a hole in his cage, evidently made by a vandal, and departed. Flaco, who’d been born in captivity and whose species is not native to North America, swooped and roosted in Central Park, taught himself how to hunt—stunning scientists—and lived more than a year on his own before wildlife rescuers found him unresponsive after an apparent collision with a building on West Eighty-ninth Street. —The New Yorker, February 26, 2024.  Photo: Flaco the owl perched on a water tower above a building in Manhattan in December. Credit: Paul Beiboer via The New York Times, February 26, 2024

The night I let Flaco the long eared Eurasian eagle-owl out of his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo I was as high as a red-tailed hawk. Earlier I had also downed two long-expired White Claws (one Blackberry and one Mango) and a bottle of Blue Moon from the back of the fridge because I was cleaning it out and I hate letting things go to waste. It was cold and dark and there we were, two creatures with eyes, just staring at each other and breathing in and out. After some time, it became apparent which one of us was the superior being. I was alone, which wasn’t unusual, but wished there was someone around to help me, which was. I hopped the fence no problem, but that stainless steel mesh was no joke. I stayed for a while, hoping the hole I had cut was big enough, but he didn’t budge. I kind of respected that. Later I followed his travels on @ManhattanBirdAlert and other birder accounts that I found by searching his name. At first, Flaco stayed in the park, testing his wings, learning to hunt, hanging out in his favorite oak tree at 104th Street. Then he expanded his reach, exploring the UES, eating rats and pigeons and other small animals, peering into people’s apartments and frequenting fire escapes, construction equipment and air conditioners. There was something about the sound of his hoots—almost like the sound you could make by blowing across the top of a glass bottle—echoing down from the rooftop water towers of Manhattan that made you feel lonely and comforted at the same time. I don’t know. Anyway, now he’s gone. I am responsible either for his death or for the best year of his life. Possibly both. Fly on, brother.

Author's Note: I assure you this is a persona poem.

Susan Barry-Schulz grew up in a house full of books just outside of Buffalo, NY. She is a poet, collage artist and disabled Physical Therapist. Her work has appeared in SWWIM, Shooter Literary Magazine, Bending Genres, B O D Y, Leon Literary Review, West Trestle Review, Stone Canoe, Okay Donkey, and in many other print and online journals and anthologies. 

ON THE ARREST OF A DOMESTIC ROCK DOVE

by Matthew King

A pigeon that was captured eight months back near a port after being suspected to be a Chinese spy, is released at a vet hospital in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Jan.30, 2024. Police had found two rings tied to its legs, carrying words that looked like Chinese. Police suspected it was involved in espionage and took it in. Eventually, it turned out the pigeon was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was transferred to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors set it free on Tuesday. (Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times via AP via ABC News, February 1, 2024) 

It’s said, when Noah’s ark had run aground

but water stretched far as the human eye

could see, he sent a dove out as a spy.

Her first sortie betrayed for miles around

no evidence of anything undrowned,

but with another week for things to dry,

and Earth to soak in hues of sun and sky,

she brought a sprig of leafy green she found.

The world may end, depending on a word.

We all know, if not why, a dove is meant

to signal peace, so let’s rename the bird

and think, if we would like, it might be sent

to fight for land or money or religion:

that’s no dove, it’s just a dirty pigeon.

Author's note: A Taiwanese racing pigeon, which had been detained in India for eight months on suspicion of being a Chinese spy, was released last week. (In 2020 Indian authorities arrested a suspected Pakistani spy pigeon.) "Pigeon" is another name for domesticated rock doves, and the idea of a spying dove, for me, recalls the bird Noah sent from the ark to see if there was anything alive in the world. The image of the dove returning with an olive branch is of course a widely recognized peace symbol, used for instance in the logo of the annual UN-sponsored International Day of Peace. In light of so much going on in the world, including struggles over naming things and what follows from our naming of them, it is darkly fitting that a dove by another name would be mistaken for a hostile agent.

Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, Canada; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville", where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry.

NO LONGER CONFINED

by Johnnie Clemens May

Molested as a child
And mute for six years,
Yet you, with regal voice
And erect frame,

As an adult sang sweetly.
Never, once released, did you cease to ascend,
Giving so many fledglings silken wings.
Even Elijah could not work as many wonders.
Love was the creed
On which you based a life
Unlike any other’s:

Rich in word wisdom,
Insistent that the dove would soar,
Persistent in your dance of affirmation.


Johnnie Clemens May has an MFA in poetry from Pacific University and teaches English and creative writing at Glendale Community College in Arizona.