The birds have it all in them, they know all the songs.
If I am in a world of machines,
I hear them channel-surf the world of sounds:
towhee, falcon, peewee, caralarm, digiclock,
one switch and then another.
And if I’m a part of nature, then this is a composition
or cadenza.
A virtuoso oneupsmanship of any song that can be sung:
hum a few bars and I’ll turn it into something
new.
All to get the babes or is it for fun?
Will the sun come up without the song?
Who is mocked but those who wish for a reason?
Perhaps each quip is a question of shorts,
asking the audience of the world if anyone does know
the tune.
Early rising, improbable listening.
Hear the sense of the world and you might know your place
in it.
To riff on what’s there, to compose out of thin air,
these are the tools of the trade.
The bird on the wire hears the rain pelt the asphalt,
and the sound, yes, the sound of wet tires screeching
to a halt:
there is as much reason to end up here as anywhere.
The slam of a car door, the demand of a sparrow on the
sill:
I live in this of all worlds, and someone is home.
To pinpoint a location you will have to listen:
the babies have flown from the nest in the rafters,
either that, or they have fallen out, and they won’t
be let back in.
And the whistle of warblers, the shock of the goldfinch.
In the dark I the bird can pretend, in light I am overdoing
it,
pretending to be what I’m not, like art, like imagination.