By Ralph Earle
I know a few: robins, starlings —
for the rest, the tenacious
deep deep peer-up peer-up peer-up
swelling shifting layer over layer,
teaberry teaberry teaberry teep
on the branch ch- ch- ch- ch- ch-
with the sky just barely not dark.
When Joan Marie visited we listened
to owls: who knew for you.
In the morning we biked to the lake —
Whoo-is-she, whoo-is-she, whoo-is-she.
A duck plowed a silent wake,
its ripples widening, subsiding.
Joan Marie called it adult,
the way we handled things,
birdie birdie sweet sweet sweet
cardinals and mockingbirds.
Joan Marie knows why seabirds
come inland, cormorant
and curlew, even here
where the heron wades,
one dream-like step, then another,
then unfolds its wings,
joan-marie joan-marie joan-marie
and lifts low across the lake.
| Copyright © 2020 by Ralph Earle |
You can see why I paired with this transcendant poem of yours, Ralph, Geoffrey Dean’s “Spring Sounds (like),” with its many bird similes and its Vivaldi lines,“Then they die away to silence, and the birds / take up their charming songs once more.” For me, Vivaldi’s “die away to silence” nicely counterpoises your “just barely not dark.”
ReplyDeleteExcellent work--what a pleasure to wake up and read such a wonderful piece of poetry.
ReplyDeleteI love how you interpret the bird sounds, transporting me to the very moment you heard them, and how you weave those sounds - an aviary commentary - into the poem with such ease. Beautifully done!
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with Neophyte, I could call the species from your description. Seems like you too have been taught by the wife-mine's a "twitcher" the Brits call it-and she loves this. She taught me to notice and identify the birds I had heard my whole life until then and didn't know what they were.
ReplyDeleteMy wife too (Neophyte's Mom)! Same way about plants. She can name virtually everything growing in our yard (including many of the weeds). I can remember only a fraction of the names of the commoner things. I'm a difficult pupil, incorrigible.
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