The feral parrots fly in pairs
Out and about over parks and arboreta
The feral parrots fly in pairs
In loud shouting clouds above Pasadena

Two's the rule
The rule is two
Two among other twos
or two untethered
Tree to tree or place to place
in mists and haze, or en plein air
Two's the rule 
The rule is two

Keeping company
one with the other
One with one other
and never another
Each of two
looking out for the one
that looks back at the one
of the two they are not

Their parents parents parents sprung from cages
    freed by fire
Thrown on hot updrafts back into air
    they had nearly forgot
Wings returned to winging
Throats returned to singing
But the world they now found was not the world that was one time their own
Not at all the world that their own forebears had known
Is their bond born of that history?

Finding themselves
unbound and untrammeled
what did they have
but the others of their kind
similarly suddenly
free and bereft

So each one found
    harbored in palms
    beside parking lots
    or huddling adjacent 
    in backyard eucalypts
that each must find one
with whom to fare forward
In duo soli

Two's the rule
The rule is two
Two among other twos
or two untethered
Keeping company
one with the other
One with one other
and never another
Each of two
looking out for the one
that looks back at the one
of the two they are not

Feathered creatures do not weep
whatever princes have written of doves
The feral parrots fly in pairs
for fear of parting without tears

The feral parrots fly in pairs
Out and about over parks and arboreta
The feral parrots fly in pairs
In loud shouting clouds above Pasadena

~~~