Cautious

**"Cautious**"
“Cautious” describes both the demeanor of the **bird** and that of the observing narrator. Both feel threatened, the **bird** of the possible consequences of its savagery, the narrator because she is next on the **bird’s** path. She “offered him a Crumb,” not because she admires the **bird** but out of fear and expediency. The **bird**, sensing that it has escaped any potentially harmful consequences for what it has done, struts a bit as **“he unrolled his feathers”** and “rowed him softer home — .” Return to poems