The Birds

By Linda Pastan b. 1932 Linda Pastan

are heading south, pulled

by a compass in the genes.

They are not fooled

by this odd November summer,

though we stand in our doorways

wearing cotton dresses.

We are watching them

as they swoop and gather—

the shadow of wings

falls over the heart.

When they rustle among

the empty branches, the trees

must think their lost leaves

have come back.

The birds are heading south,

instinct is the oldest story.

They fly over their doubles,

the mute weathervanes,

teaching all of us

with their tailfeathers

the true north.

Reprinted from The Imperfect Paradise, by Linda Pastan. Copyright © 1988 by Linda Pastan. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Ms. Pastan’s most recent book is “Queen of a Rainy Country,” W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

Source: The Imperfect Paradise (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1988)

Biography

Poet Linda Pastan was raised in New York City but has lived for most of her life in Potomac, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. In her senior year at Radcliffe College, Pastan won the Mademoiselle poetry prize (Sylvia Plath was the runner-up). Immediately following graduation, however, she decided to give up writing poetry in order to concentrate on raising her family. After ten years at home, her husband urged her to . . .

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