'...We have them in the gardens inside us.' Photo: Paulo Brandao / Unsplash.
Birds
'Birds' by Peter Daniels
And the springtime, after the long winter.
The birds are giving off information,
each tweeting like a whistle on a stick.
We have them in the gardens inside us.
Some birds have fed us, or we’ve watched them
watching us like hawks, turning to clichés.
Their little souls match our little souls, babbling
and shrieking with us since before Jericho.
Older than us and our signs for things, they serve
as our messengers. This coot jerks across the lake
carrying a twig longer than itself. The dove
comes back to Noah across a stained glass window.
The hen blackbird with her earth-brown coat
knows who we are. Her husband, more obvious,
is smartly dressed in charcoal and a mustard beak:
we’ve named him. We only live next door.
