This poem was recently revised, and due to formatting problems has been re-posted out of chronological order. 

The Secret Life of Birds

June 25 2007

I never much noticed the birds.

There were crows, of course

coal-black and raucous,

like old men, with hoarse cantankerous coughs.

And loons,

their plaintive piercing calls

haunting the darkness.

But otherwise

all those warbles and trills would blend into pleasant nothingness,

tuned-out by my untrained ear.

Occasionally, I would come upon a dead bird,

this weightless body out-of-place

on the wide wooden veranda

- the fastidious feathers, in all their fine detail,

the utter stillness

of its perfect tapered form.

And I would briefly wonder

about an empty nest,

a mate, calling fruitlessly.

And how the sun-lit forest

so unobtrusively

disposes of its dead.

Such a cheerful chorus

concealing the secret life of birds -

strutting scolding fighting warning,

insistent bachelors courting

in the sweet seduction of spring.

Perhaps whole armies of sparrows

going off to war,

brightening my day

with their anthems

and marching songs.