It's the birds I notice.
Dawn-filled chirps at 4 am
emptyhanded grasp at sleep replaced
instead with hungover wonder: whose idea
to plant trees around the house?
Daytime, and glossbacked crows wing singly overhead,
bad times karaoke from the pine trees.
Many a murder we've watched
from the front window.
Spring and fall, geese sew and hem
the seasons, stitching grey skies.
Hoarse gabbling of week-long pubcrawlers
Hardscrabbling the fields.
Winter, old nests
ghost the tree.
It's the lack of birds
I notice.
4 comments:
yeah, here we go. okay, I think you're doing a "Suzanne" (according to Anne Simpson) and ramping up to the real poem... so if you don't mind me saying, I'd start at the 3rd stanza b'cause it's gorgeous.
just a thought.
The third stanza is amazing, but I wouldn't want to lose the karaoke crows. Or maybe you can keep them for their own poem... this does feel like it belongs to the geese.
Yes, I'd keep the crows somehow. It does almost feel like there's the germ of more than one poem here.
I notice the birds, now, before I get to sleep..yes, it's the birds I notice. I tend to agree the connection is stronger toward the end, but..I thought -whose idea to plant trees around the house?- was hilarious! -hungover- was perhaps overkill to introduce the question.
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