Blue Jay Day Poem by Maynard Hartman

The best part of that day in May,
was laying on the fresh cut hay.
Breathing the fumes of meadows fruit,
I rolled around…I stained my suit.
Then I slept under beauties shield,
there inside that open field.

I woke up suddenly to a scream.
Surely now this was a dream?
For I could not believe what I saw that day, there beside me in the hay,
a broken, sobbing, dirty Blue Jay.

He looked at me and spoke outright,
'My wing is broken I cannot take flight.
If you help me from my plight, I’ll show you some things, the grandest sights.'

I could not resist this birds distress.
Was this perhaps gods little test?
I picked him up and held him close,
we traveled a mile or two at most,
before he called out to his host,
a shrieking, banshee sort of ghost.

It came so quickly to his call,
I heard him laugh before my fall,
into that darkest pit of all.

'Harbor no ill', I think he said,
just before I was completely dead.
I sometimes think of that fateful day,
and of my corpse…rotting in the hay.

The worst part of that day in May
…was that dirty little Blue Jay.