Songbirds
Aug 14 2025
If I knew my birds
would I listen better?
Would I, a connoisseur of song
ears cocked
spout with great assurance
common names
and Latin taxonomy?
Or is there something pure
in my naïveté
aside from wilful ignorance?
A purity
to encountering the world
with a child’s wide-eyed wonder,
no preconceptions
or need to judge?
After all
to name is not to know,
and a label
has no meaning in itself.
It begins before the sun.
With just a lightening
in the eastern sky
I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed.
And it’s more cacophony than song.
As if a chorus of sopranos
did their warmups all at once,
the altos
were competing to be loudest.
Because they aren’t making music,
their intention isn’t beauty,
they don’t care
if they’re out of tune.
It’s males in gaudy plumage
puffing out their chests
to impress the opposite sex;
the drab females
whose taste in men
determines success.
Or could it just be their exuberance
to have lived another day
in the perilous life of a bird?
Because does everything in nature
have to have a purpose,
don’t even birds
have inner lives?
. . . Not to mention the worms;
which, I suppose, are also up early
if it's true what they say.
But at night, the loons have it to themselves,
their haunting calls
resounding out over the lake,
then lingering
on the cool night air.
Side-by-side,
two plump bodies
are floating calmly
on its unruffled surface,
mirrored glass
black as the sky it reflects.
As much fish as bird,
they occupy the liminal plane
between water and air
as if at home in either.
They are already paired
so who knows why they vocalize,
what elemental urge
compels them to give voice.
I stand onshore and listen,
expectant in the silences
excited when they call.
If only I could be as free,
give vent
to a full-throated release
as wild, timeless, and deep.
Could exclaim my joy, delight, and wonder,
or let go a primal scream
from depths I fear to plumb.
Not caring in the least
who might overhear
presume to judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment