I've never heard a more confident bird
than this Carolina wren,
my small but confident soul,
hoping purposefully
between mishappen branches.
My backyard is full
of long, uneven grass
and busy, insistent
singers:
birds with
loud, demanding messages
on a warm evening in April,
when everything is green
and thirsty for rain
and further growth.
Where the grass
doesn't grow,
brown bundles
of forgotten leaves
decorate the southern
Carolina clay.
The female cardinals
of duller shades
are full-bodied and eat
greedily from my half-
filled feeders, and the finches
peck at scraps of seeds
like tiny yet efficient vacuums.
The lawnmower lies
dormant by the once blue,
dilapidated
trampoline
that once embraced
four to five children
in a closed circle
of hilarious bouncing.
The windchimes
no longer stir or offer
solace when the heat
has tired out the day
and their parched
metal tubes are
resting.
My middle-aging soul
has yet to find a song
for spring, or worthy
recognition.
A barred owl
kept me up last night
with consistent hooting
and unbroken cadence
that demanded a
wakeful audience, if only me
for company.
It called to me,
in my own mind,
to join him in the woods,
or so it seemed
to my unsteady reasoning.
I lied awake
more wakeful
than this nocturnal
hunter who was born
for anchored meaning
on unflinching branches,
and truer melody
than me.
Yesterday,
another owl stared at me
nonchalantly on a branch
that divided the woods
from our Quaker school.
His nest may not be far
and he was casual in his
unflinching consideration
of me and other things.
The geese squawk
past the woods, claiming
territory with long necks
and awkward fumbling,
breaking the quiet evening,
yet still somehow
a part of things.
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