Wild Turkeys, San Juan, WA

Leave it to turkeys
to turn the wild slope behind the house
into a "Reach Out And Touch Someone" ad.

But that's unfair: The turkeys create
this rumpled space. They've spread it out
and now face every which way, waiting
for a signal to roll it up, like a tent
just taken down.

The near one knows we're here,
wary, but not unduly concerned,
as if saying, "Stay back, please,
folks, just stay back; we'll be done
here soon."

Beyond them glows a green river
and a wall of dark forest of which
these huge grounded birds whose
scrawny necks have only half decided
to become heads are the almost--

no offense--human face.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002