Poetry Lives in a Pine
Whether
I’ll grow old is concretely uncertain now.
It's
a strange kind of alone.
Yet
each October morning around 7:40 am,
a
blue jay screeches from our backyard pine.
In
response, other blue jays in close-by trees
screech
back. These passionate discussions
commence
by the time my dog and I reach
the
end of our walkway. For most of my 42 years,
I’d
never noticed such a phenomenon. Bird singing
was
simply bird singing. The rhythms, the patterns,
the
by-the-species specifics, I’d paid no attention to.
The
day after I first heard eventual heart transplant,
I
ate blueberry yogurt on the porch and listened
to
the birds. Carolina wrens, the teakettle whistlers
of
the avian world, blessingly couldn’t care less about such
instability.
A cardinal perched herself on a pole
that
held a hanging basket of red petunias. She stared
at
me and quickly flew to our magnolia, where she sang
into
the sun. Two robins hopped along the grass,
foraging
under leaves that had fallen to the ground.
Birds
don’t always grow old either.
Our
garden is a favorite of mourning doves.
Hence,
it is a favorite of Cooper’s hawks. They watch
from
the fence, waiting. It’s become interesting to me how people
still
buy their coffee. How they go to the nursery and gather
lettuce
plants and pretty fall mums. Cheer at their kids’
football
games. Toss their jackets onto the backs of old chairs.
I
wonder how much they think about the doves.
Still,
around 7:40 each October morning, even with the chance
of
predators, a blue jay leads a conversation from our backyard
pine.
Full-throated, she sings and sings to her chorus. And blue jays
in
neighboring trees call back. Such poetry in the spiritedness of that.
Sarah
Mackey Kirby grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of the poetry
collection, The Taste of Your Music (Impspired, 2021). Her poems appear
in Chiron Review, Hobo Camp Review, Ploughshares, Third Wednesday
Magazine, and elsewhere. She and her husband divide their time between
Kentucky and Ohio. https://smkirby.com/
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