albino turkeys!

wild turkeys

a dozen wild turkeys clustered and pecked

amidst a pile of nut brown oak and sycamore leaves,

so intent on their own late afternoon Thanksgiving meal

that they tolerate me and my snapping camera with 20 feet of them,

the two albino birds draw me the most,

and I ache to hold their flowing beauty in a frozen image,

I decide to attempt to shepherd them

so that they will move to and up along the creek,

giving my camera rock and creek backdrop

to the sleek sinuousness of their form,

and to their staccato pecking head thrusts,

it works and I move with them up the creek,

they even indulge me 

with short flights of morphing large into the air,

so that they could stay with each other,

I write these words along the creek where they passed,

my life and theirs intersected for a bit,

they knew me as a minor annoyance

who led the dance for awhile,

till they returned to their own lead,

I knew them as the lead in a dance

I love to do with the wild.

by Henry H. Walker

November 26, ’15