Inland

Gulls circle above my living room window
in and out of low smoky clouds
lording over crows huddled in firs.
Snow is coming. In some places it's here already.
The birds know this as well as I. A pair

of gulls drops toward a roof across the street.

One gull lands but the other touches and must go.

I am not a gull but I think the visual cues failed him.

The distances are shorter here away from the water.

He tries again but concludes he is too big.

The crows express their wild delight. The gulls come

for shelter. There is food here. Peanuts, for example,

unsalted, unroasted, unshelled. The way crows like.

Pacific Wren

A noisy brown ping pong ball jumped
up from the trail and velcroed itself
to the trunk of a Douglas Fir. It cocked

its head to best keep an eye on me.
One earlier lay still on the path.
The scavengers hadn't found it yet.

I didn't kneel and use forceps as some
do to examine its final meal. It lay on
a trail--why not suspect the trail?

Generally wrens stay near the ground where
the food is. Where a sword fern scares
the hawk away. When I play the wren’s

song, sometimes it comes. The song
of rubber tires speeding through gravel
isn’t food is it? It’s not a mate singing.

One horse rider attached a jingly bell
to her horse’s halter because on this
trail once they came upon a bear.

I looked up to the crow
on the power line.
There's dignity in silence
we thought.

Previously, me and crows.

The Jay Calls

Birds erupt outside my hotel window.
Cardinal, wren, robin.
Yack Yack Yack. All aflutter.

Is it about to rain or has Jack returned from nowhere?

He used to stay in the canopy riding the waves
wind and currents presented him,
but the leaves are still against the sky.

Was there ever anything more beautiful
than his sea soaked eyelashes when he tired
and came back dripping to his towel?

The jay calls.

So thirsty he was. Still I can’t look to see his face.

Settled

Jack's tombstone wears the oak's mantel:

lichens rust the pink granite; tannins set

his name and the chiseled teak pattern

in relief. His view is good. The trees cast

long stark shadows down the green slope.

A jogger in a red jacket makes his way

along the drive. I expect a blue jay to perch

atop the stone but they accept Jack's claim.

Together the robins and blue jays watch me

listen as the Gladstone passes this good spot.

Passaic Headwaters

I came here a lot with Jack after he died.
Now I’m back for the wood thrush I suppose,
and the gnats and mosquitoes.

I take my time along the path. My phone and I
listen for birds. A woodpecker drums
to tell his mate he’s near. My guess a flicker.

Where the sun breaks through the canopy
the smell of warm earth envelops me.
I feel the plants' breath. It's almost visible.

Fronds and leaves and limbs extend.
Some itchy, some sticky. Some burn.
The trail cuts back and the headwaters

are suddenly as loud as a boy splashing down
a ledge or two then quieting into the flowing creek.
I find his spot. It isn’t hard; it’s where sneakers

get soaked through and through. I kneel. Feel
the cool stone through my jeans. Surely spring rains
and snow melt years ago carried him to sea.

A blue jay calls from deep in the leaves. Muffled.
No barking. No giggling. No chasing fireflies.
A common jeering blue jay almost makes me cry.

He calls again.

Rising

Above the treetops

two hawks

or maybe falcons

fly south with purpose

straight into the setting winter sun.

They join the others

become crows

their black breasts lit gold.

Lost Word

A rustle in the canopy too muffled for a squirrel.
I find red in my binoculars. A crest.
A pileated woodpecker resolves from the green silence.
A black mask pulled across her eyes and cheeks
makes her bill appear even longer.

Pileated is not a metaphor;
pileum is a synonym for cap.

A whisper.
Her mate settles on a nearby branch.
A red stripe extends a Joker’s open gash.
They don’t migrate. Year round
they stay and stay together.

Quieter still.
In the woods beyond, leaves.

Flight Call

A still day in early August.
I’m cool in the shade of an old maple
on a good bench to sit for birds.

Chickadees are chatting
but they can’t hold my interest.
Spring is over. All the singing

for territory, for a mate, for your brood

is done, but I don’t want to leave.

Nowhere will ease the anniversary.

A careening train of boys on bikes
comes skidding down the path.
A junco bolts.

The boys are breaking rules
but they easily avoid hitting me

and go on as if I'm not here.

If they were a year or two older,
I’m sure I would have felt again
that familiar fever spike of fury.

I wait the minutes for the birds to calm
and try to recall which have a flight call.
I missed Jack's.

I am still angry a week later.
Just ask her who lives with me
how I endure without his song.

Will not Fly

All the talk about a shady picnic bench and a slight
breeze keeping gnats at bay, is it about birds
or my personal comfort? The sun’s been up for hours.
I sip coffee. I do not slosh around cold wetlands
before dawn cracks wide open, stalking noisy wrens
and blackbirds and waterfowl of various types,
nor am I stingy with butter. Just the other day I told Hilary
I wanted to spot baby crows. Baby crows must be big,
or we’d have noticed. The mob of crows on the front lawn,
the sidewalk, on the power lines running through red maples,
the fledglings must be right in front of us this time of year.
Is this poem a way of sharing the daily banalities
the way cliff swallows do, effecting a relationship?
Or that pair of crows, now, on a limb halfway up a cedar,
one is squawking so much the other goes flying. The one
left behind cawing, cawing. It does not leave its branch;
it will not fly. Is its beak a tad smaller? Smoother?
Caw! This loudmouth picks at lichen. Not finding
what it wants it inches forward, lifting a wing to find
its balance. It shouts Mother! She damn well better get back
with some choice bit of lunch and feed me! Father!
All that time right in front of me. If I were dressed in black
feathers and you could see light refracting sometimes brown,
sometimes violet blue; if my crow’s feet were obscured

by feathers, if you weren’t one of us could you tell us apart?

But What about the Honey?

-         - September, 2015

There was only one candidate, really, that had so many opposite pairs

of small rounded leaves.

We saw it first, if you ever see anything a first time,

waiting for the bus to Orient.

The field guide insisted on thorns. Long thorns, strong enough

to nail shingles to a roof.

And pods full of seeds swimming in pulp that tasted of honey?

It was a legume for god's sake.

Its roots probably bound nitrogen.

I trusted its identity when I found the female.

Her branches were sagging. She was overwhelmed
with pods--weeping like a willow.

What towns wanted were fruitless, thornless males.

Fewer seedlings to weed. Less bird shit

smeared across windshields. Can one female keep parked rows
of males healthy? Will they keep her

brimming with seeds each fall? Why do poems about stones,
tumbling in forever receding waters,

make me so fucking sad?

The Mournful Song of the Varied Thrush

In the early days before the internet,

before all these portable devices,
before location – you remember –

how did we know when the sun would rise?

How did we know those long clear notes

coming through the trees
are sung by a solitary thrush?

We don’t need to know to stop and listen,
but give his loss a name and others might hear.

When you are a crow and you are

forever looking down on people,
do you find you still think highly of them?

The 5 Types of Poems

1. Songs
2. Companion calls
3. Territorial aggression (often male to male)
4. Adolescent begging
5. Alarms

Found in What the Robin Knows by Jon Young.