December 19, 2011

Who calls again and again
outside my window
answered distantly by another?
What pretty bird sits on that
branch insisting to be 
heard
acknowledged
answered?
 
When I went to fill the feeder 
yesterday the noisy commotion of birds
in the unruly brush and tangled vines
across the creek abruptly stopped.
Keeping things hush-hush, as if I,
dull-witted human that I am,
would be able to fathom 
and somehow foil their plans.
 
In their last hours both my mother 
and my friend Pam had silently 
retreated to some place within
or was it beyond
as unfathomable to me 
as the language of birds.