Pairing Days for Birds and Frogs


We hear them past a certain while 
when we have walked the extra mile
High and peeping, steady on, 
Others whistle by our side
By these tests our minds are tried 
Amphibians and frogs: they share a simple style
They sit and bang and bang and bang some more awhile
Like notes that fill a pitcher drop by drop (by drop!)
Someone must love them to make them stop 
Tree frogs above the watery patches 
Announce themselves in prolonged snatches
of cris de coeur: by such addition 
such little mass, such strong nutrition 

Birds now have a mobile fashion 
of spreading calls all down the street
They labor hard to spread the notion 
that no bird else is quite as sweet
They speed their notes on dying light 
As if their song must soon take flight 
They turn their heads from side to side 
as if to watch their music glide 
to some dear partner of their race 
with whom they share an elevated vision 
of a greener, graceful, tight-knit space 
In greening branch to knit a nest 
While wind and time prepare a test 

Human pairs their own way show 
In keeping down and moving slow
Their calls are weak and seldom heard 
By slow degree they build a constant sort 
of froggy life
And nothing much impress a bird 





Together Apart 


He hunches by the window writing 
His double-day will soon be nighting 
It's darker where X spends his days
Sun never breaks from glassine haze 
What stars can shine in such a place? 
Does he need to eat, or murmur grace?
Throw down his heart in pure despair 
Wonder should he even care 
Is there anybody else out there?
I'm here! I'm Y! Give a good long stare
You'll know me, I look just like you
Look up, another world on view

Double down on poets, double down on rhyme
Sautee in a second sauce, sprinkle it with thyme
You bat left and I'll bat right 
Heave a hard one, high and tight 
Double-sided, Siamese, 
Por favor and I'll say please 
We'll hold hands like Gemini
I'll be you if you be I 
Divided in some primal joke, 
albu-men and female yolk
We were born to be as one 
I'm your daughter, you're my son
Reflections glimpsed in dismal haze 
Merge as one, an ideal gaze 





Twin Phenomena 


Modest among so many super stars
three fingers apart in the western sky, holding hands
for more millennia than people have centuries
They are half-twins, astral mythology style, 
born of Leda, Spartan queen, who bore the king's attentions 
the same night rapacious Zeus paid a call
Oh, have we failed to mention he came to her in the form 
of a swan,
that emblem of serene white beauty?
(though the cob, protecting his rights to mate, will attack 
strangers with a will) 
Those night-watching ancestors do have their stories.

They emerge from the egg, these vernal twins, 
with egg-shells capping their heads,
an early fashion in headgear
Scull-capped as boxers,
patrons of athletes and mariners,
they greet us on the verge of summer, 
that two-timing, schizophrenic season
Why self-enamored for so long?
Two eternal boys, finding no other lure, 
no stronger attraction in all space-time to challenge
their place in the universe, 
their turn in the spotlight
housing the ecliptic when the sun comes round again

Sailors chose them to swear by, over their father, 
vowing not 'by Jupiter,' but 'by Jiminy'
What ancient mystery, blood deep knowledge, 
love of the trackless past, 
honors these fellows with naming rights 
to all such mysteries that come in pairs? 



​

Walker of Birds 


I am the news 
You spread word of me 
a dozen feet ahead,
wild cherry pinking by the way, 
the marsh breathing its greenie scent, 
your dark busy bodies,
the wordless intimacy of birds of a feather
springing  in affinity group clusters,
breaking free at my approach 
I make no sound on the mild spring mud, 
the untraveled footpath maintained, poorly, as if for me alone
The season's music is yours 
you spurt into brush, 
escape on the wing, 
squawking the news,
flashing your red-gold shoulder blazon,
blackbirds lured to refuel by salt marsh riches,
My disruption births your chatter:
The big event
nothing else comes this way (be thankful),
no hawks or hunters

Again I take my birds for a walk 
My alien progress tests your alarms 
You rely on the eye
and your call recognition 
Memories of ancient times alert at the mere mention 
of merely me, my approach 
rounding toward the sheltered place where egrets no longer swarm 
in their dainty whites (was it something I said?)
Now osprey play the chasing game,
braying me to follow them, ludicrously 
to the tree-line beyond a marsh's treacherous footing 
(a feat unattempted since Paleolithic hungers 
drove two-legged marauders everywhere)
They scream the code of my approach,
eagles of the nesting tower,
pursuers of fish, successors to herons and hawks,
the earlier dynasties of this realm

I am your intruder,
your enemy, your invading army of one, 
but you deter me with trickery
for somewhere, wandering among 
red-shouldered birds, 
confused, enchanted by bird cry, pine smell, tree blossom
you see the dream of tomorrow's generation