Season of the Saw-Bird

Season of the Saw-Bird

Sunny of a Tuesday 

As I sit out on my porch

I won’t take my bird walk today

In a heat wave summer scorch

Years ago I learned to hear 

I know my birds I’m rarely wrong

And watch my wild birds by ear

Distinct as plumage is their song

Except I never heard this one before

Kind of a goes “we-heeeee ..’

Followed by a ring and a buzz

Er – Errrrr – er – errrr- er – er-rent!

   Wing wing wing wing …

From out back the plumber’s house

He renovates old bathrooms

Keeps his shop in his garage

Home with old tools and his brooms

Late July’s the quiet time

Most the Spring birds have nested

Mating songs are over with

Young fledgling’s wings long tested

‘Cause birds don’t fly north in summer

Their migrations commence after these doldrums

  Quiet summer birdless doldrums

Now here again, 

  The season of the saw-bird

So, yeah, 

I know he’s cuttin’ tiles

And that old coot’s no old bird

Still on a summer Tuesday

He’s the only bird I heard

The Rolling Thunders of a Summer’s Empty Nest

The Rolling Thunders of a Summer’s Empty Nest

So this happened yesterday, I noticed it all too quietly, 

Cocked head I listened, and attuned to the raucous silence

Our house wrens both had gone! 

Ago, the slack-water of Spring’s ebbing into summer

Brought in the pair of wee wrens come to claim stake of my rental 

The male stuffed with twigs all three of my hand made nest boxes

No fear of no bears within this little brown Goldilocks, oh no

The female finally settling in the big one on the garage 

Then singing singing singing, a veritable two bird Woodstock

Until next about two weeks in a coarser chatter began 

Harping like a New Years party ratchet, chat chit chit ... 

Intending to warn me away, mostly from the female 

Henpecking her mate to stand his ground with me, pick a fight!  

  And I who put up that nest box too!

That chatter in latter days the only sound that either made 

Until third voices, fae faerie twinkles deep within the box

Told me me warm summers brood patch had worked it’s magic in their nest 

I long for that month, six weeks even maybe while they cheered me 

Or as rude neighbors will, forbade me checking in on their brood

Until today of a sudden, 

   what’s wrong? 

Echos the rolling thunders of an empty summer’s nest

Summer’s heat bereft of chatter, long flown cool cheerful songs 

No tails flicking on the runner string bean trellis. 

No little grubs in beaks tweaking on back step rails

Cantankerous little cuties 

If you see ‘em, tell ‘em I miss 'em.

Neighbors

Neighbors

At a distance I can hear their sounds 

Ghost of a Nana scolding children

Echo children’s shrill return

  “I wanna …”

    “He just …”

      “Do I have to  … ?”

What I know of them comes on the wind 

As is the wind alone makes up my mind

  Mind is wind

No difference despite the inverted squiggle

I think I know where from they come

A street off my street house up one 

  Turn right, two houses from that one

Sight of their play is blocked by trees

I’ve never gone to see them from here

  Would I side with the kids if I did?  

They are what the wind brings to me

Weekends bear the songs of woodworking

Power tools and planes, not the airborne kind

  But the thing that looks like a shoe, makes wood curls

Sounds stronger downwind, thinner when up,

Like naturalists banding songbirds, 

  Caught in nets between my ears

Shall I go see his works?

Happy to hear the clear wind blow

  I decide best I ought not know

Good neighbors make good fences

The Magic Chip

The Magic Chip

First time we brought him to the vet

She placed a little metal chip under his skin

  On the back between his shoulder blades 

Imbued with its specific magnetic frequency

With the wave of her magic wand 

  All his clinical data was born

If you could have a metal chip implanted, 

  Would you?

“No way, I don’t my ‘information’ in there,”

   Funny the God fearing, fear ‘God’

After implanted, the vet waived her wand, 

Made funny faces, - suspense moment - 

  “Ah! There he is!”

We joked his soul lived in that chip

Successive visits, the wand waived on,

“His weight is down, his vitals down,

  His kidney’s acting up”

After he died we got his ashes back, 

  Picking him up

She waived once more the wand over his ossuary,

  “Nope, he’s gone”

When Cat Grew Tired

 

   

  ,

When Cat Grew Tired

When Cat grew tired,

  Felt his concession to an illness

Advancing faster with acquiring age,

  He came to prefer those safer places

Such as underneath my armchair, here 

  Near where I may watch and ward,

Or under the dining room table, its stockade 

  Of fence post of chair legs to thwart the spectral path 

Of whom, under the shroud of soulless night,

 May creep within on padded feet

Unseen despite the vigilance of sight, 

  That thief of gossamer life, who comes

Gone the days you stalked the mouse

  Gone the days you ruled our house

Stay safe within your guarded keep

  Good night sweet cat, 

     I’ll watch, you sleep   

A Two Beetle

A Two Beetle

Two of them appearing on a window

One gold, glowing as fire from the sun

Whose six legs alternate upon the screen, 

No telling where it’s going or has been,

I’d thought these insects all were slate cold gray,

It’s come for warmth to take the sun today

The second, black, is crawling just the same

A six legged oval on the window pane,

Walking tandem along-side its brother

As if the other was its mother

But no - it’s its shadow, dark and clear

Who with the crawling sunset disappears

Ghost Kitten Ramble

Ghost Kitten Ramble

When it is dark he’s colored dark

And when its light he’s lite fur white

He can blend into the sunshine

He hides under blankets of night

With little care for home and lodge

With one eye open sleeps awake 

Attendant on the midnight watch

The other closed asleep he wakes 

He gnaws the hand that feeds him treats

Then licks his five toed barb clawed feet

He’ll never let me pick him up

My ghost kitten, to hold and keep