Anna Egeland

Bird Watching

What can I say? Finally I have lived a bit more
and loved more too, but still
I cannot grant myself the happiness of moving in,
of shared weekday breakfasts, of a shared watching
of birds in their perilous hoppings from branch to branch,
those plastic orange berries they seem to adore,
but I have yet to name–the birds or the berries.
To name something is to love it,
I have thought that many times, especially
those Floridian creatures: Anhinga, Ibis, Spoonbill…
how can I help but sing them out each time I see them?
I want to hold those swamp days, if not
in my hands, at least in my vocabulary.
You can’t keep anyone forever,
I remind Daniel regularly. See?
There. I named him.

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Anna Egeland grew up in Iowa City, Iowa and has lived in France, Massachusetts, Alabama, Florida, and most recently Seattle, WA. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida. She was a finalist for the 2025 Rash Award in Poetry and a recipient of a college prize from the Academy of American Poets. Her poems are found or forthcoming in the Stonecoast Review, Broad River Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and on poets.org.