Feather in the Path of a Mower

Rain is coming this afternoon, so this morning
I am mowing the unkempt lawn.
Pushing the mower into the unruly growth,
I am vigilant for debris that might obstruct my progress,
and I see on the grass, four strides ahead,
a single gray feather.

I found a feather when I was four years old,
and it was so beautiful
I placed it, quill-end down,
into a clear glass jar filled partway with water.
I hoped the feather would survive like a flower,
and might even sprout a bird.

As I approach, three strides away,
I admire its elegant gradation from light gray to dark.
Perhaps from a catbird, like the one
at the birdbath a few days ago, hopping in
and out of the pool, flaunting his black head crest.
When I was a kid, we had a swimming pool.
I dove in and climbed out, time and again,
drying my shaggy head-crest with a towel.

Decades later at a deserted beach in Perth,
I dunked myself into the surf
and survived in a rip tide
a long time alone far from shore,
because I knew how to float.
The sea birds were indifferent to this human flotsam,
though I admired their white and gray plumage,
like the gray feather two strides ahead of me.

After the rain passes,
I will go sailing.
I love gliding across the lake water,
propelled by only my intention and the wind,
like a feather on a wing,
flying by only impulse and atmosphere,
as this gray feather once soared,
now one stride ahead of me.

It slides under the deck and
disintegrates in the whirling scythe,
vanishing into compost atop the leveled turf,
on which I plod
while scanning ahead
for flotsam on the sea of grass,
soon to be soaked with rain
from the feather-gray clouds swirling overhead.

John K. Kruschke

First published in The Westchester Review, Spring 2026 Issue, 01 April 2026.

Notes: Poems written in first person need not be autobiographical, and usually are not. Instead they express an imaginary “I” or a persona. However, this poem is autobiographical, with thoughts that were provoked while mowing the lawn one day. The running theme of the poem is the various ways that I identify with the gray feather, or with the birds that wear the gray feather, and, ultimately, with the feather’s perspective of what’s impending.

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