This Is Not a Poem About a Dead Bird

Today I saw a dead bird
and it didn't make me want to write a poem.

That's how I knew everything was going to be okay.

I mean, not everything. Clearly the ice caps are still melting,
the planet is still warming. World hunger is
still an issue, and local hunger for that matter.

I am still a poet with great bohemian passion but very
few employable skills.
Perhaps what I really knew was that nothing
was going to be simply okay, but that
I, truly the only arbiter of what okay even means,
would be okay.

I am okay.

There was a dead bird, and I am okay.