A morning as still as death
covered in heavy white shroud
lackluster hum of dying crickets
occasional word from the neighbor’s
chickens broken finally by the
persistent song of one fully living
cardinal telling his real story
to whomever will listen hoping
for whatever it is cardinals hope for
if hope is what they do contrary to
what I am told with a shake of the
head, oh no, birds do not have a
thing in them called Hope.
Only humans pursue such folly.
Still and dark with only crickets for conversation
a pink pocket of light appears above the trees.
So something is happening after all.
Now comes another pink ribbon drawn
through the blue dress of sky followed by
another and another and the lightening.
Lovely dawn making its slow, inimitable way
into the town and across my windows.
Comes another day. Holding what?
Holding what for us in its open palms?
We shall leave this room, my dogs and I,
and find out.
One longs for the day when a chill nips the air
the night to huddle beneath a pouf of cover
and yet, won’t we miss the blanket of heat
when ever it lifts, taking with it the singing cicadas
the humming crickets the crackling katydids
the fat moaning bullfrogs?