Birds Of A Feather Poem by Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

This poem was written after my father died in 2012. Like me, he loves to garden and work the soil with his hands. In the mornings, he would whistle with the two birds, which he thinks were lovers. both residing in a branch of a mango tree. When the mango tree bore fruits, he took a slingshot and aimed at some mangoes, but hit instead one of the birds, who was just flying back to the tree. After the death of one of the birds, both my father and the bird continued their conversation, and the bird seem to ask my father each day, where he took his lover.

When my father died, he told me he would come back to say hello, and i assured him, i would recognize him, in whatever form. He came to me, always as a feather, in my moments of contemplation, landing where i could catch him, in my palms.