Therapy for the bird winger

There is a poem from Spoon River Anthology (a fantastic work by the way, if you never read it) called “Bert Kessler.” It begins…

I WINGED my bird,

Though he flew toward the setting sun;

I’ve always like that line despite the fact (or perhaps, because)a friend of mine used to crack me up by reading it in Elmer Fudd’s voice (“I winged my buhhhd…”). “Kessler” begins with a story of triumph, a man hitting his target in the face of adversity. And just a few lines after getting sucked in to old Bert’s success, you find out Bert actually gets bit by a rattle snake when he reaches down to pick up his quail. That spells death for our tiumphant hunter (sort of a running theme in Spoon River).

Today, I am Bert and spam is my quarry. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting spam.

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