DailyMail.com Reporter

BY JOYCE SCHMID

Petra, Congo parrot, said:

Alexa, all the lights on.

And Alexa said OK—

and there was light.

Standing on her perch,

a cross made out of reddish logs,

the parrot saw that it was good.

And then the she said:

Alexa, all the lights off,

and the darkness covered

all the surface of the deep.

The parrot, filled with joy

at separating darkness

from the light,

called her faithful servant

once again and told her

in a low, un-birdlike voice:

I love you.

Joyce Schmid's recent work has appeared in Literary Imagination, New Ohio Review, Missouri Review, Poetry Daily, a previous issue of The Fourth River, and other journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband of over half a century in Palo Alto, California.