(Belted Kingfisher by Caleb Baker-2015)

Driving to church one morning, I noticed a Belted Kingfisher perched on an electric wire suspended over Stansbury Lake.  What a strikingly beautiful bird.  I wondered about his perspective on the world from that perch.  All through church I thought more about the kingfisher and what he saw than I did about the sermons and what they taught.  I wondered what he saw, what he felt, what he thought about, what it must be like to dive like a missile into the water, then rise with a writing minnow.  Sitting in my pew I wrote this poem.  My family thought I was taking copious notes on the sermons.  (Thanks to my son Caleb for this excellent drawing of a Belted Kingfisher.  The smudge is from the best of many scans, not his pencil).

KINGFISHER

Kingfisher,
watching from your high-wire perch,
looking down upon the world,
upon the water—
what is it that you see?

Kingfisher,
diving from your elevated view,
wings folded,
a yellow-beaked torpedo—
what was it that you saw?

Kingfisher,
fluffing your feathers dry,
back at your vigilance place,
the minnow having slid down your gullet—
what was it that it saw?

Kingfisher,
flying on your blues and blacks from your high-wire perch
into the nook of a sheltering tree,
the waning sun still warming—
what will you see tomorrow?