The City, The Forest and Other Bird Songs

( after Mary Oliver )


It is everywhere—
the echo
overlapping upon itself
as the sweet, lilting
songs of birds
in the
stiff, stately pines
standing thick,

dark and tall
between, among
the bleached high-rises,
their sterile glass eyes blink
from early shifting light
in the nip of dawn,
suddenly begin to herald
the new day—

and, with the vocal trills
lifting up from the
council of trees,
the span of a
disgruntled owl emerges,
leaving me
quelled of speech,
and only a single thought

of hope
following its flight,
as I wait for permission
to cross
a wide intersection
that is yet to be
inundated with the day’s
humanity.