Eccentric Season

 

A loud single song out the window

For a second day I’m greeted this way

Whom is it calling?

I’d like to think it was me, but it must be

Another creature

Singing to to say hello, come over here

There’s a divot-space next to the air-conditioner

Might make a nice place for a nest

 

I guess this because it’s happened

More than once

That through the panel I can see bird-shadows

Moving

They come and go for a while

I should worry, and I do, that all goes well

While there is waiting for small, gray life

To emerge—

Usually, they’re gray—

To add their greetings to the day

And the days ahead

 

I think maybe I shouldn’t look through

The window, down so much at what’s going on

I can listen to some small cacophony

Instead

 

Life will emerge, and then the nest becomes

Useless, falls apart, not fit

For a sparrow

My odd season with the nesting birds is over

I’ll clear out what remains, maybe there’s

A crack of egg to see

I tried to bring the rounded twigs inside one time,

But they fell apart too easily

A sparrow wouldn’t want it

Such a fragile operation, all this is

To make more birds

Especially in a small space on the window sill

 

And my own sign in parts that at last the weather’s

Turned into a fecund opportunity

As the planted fields around the town

Will also show, certainly in

Wider, columned ways

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash

Hong Kong