Bird Songs

A night bird gives up his song east of a cave
where mud and ashes mix with sand and fog
churning water seeps into brittle straw grass;
the last trill swept away in billowing spirals.
The melodies, lightning sheared, tremble
once launched on the wind, burrow in crevices
sheltered by mourning yew tree shadows
while half the notes rise like melting clouds.

A sun bird heads upward
on a sheet of moving air and hears the chimes
of a bell clock striking.   Red clay bricks
covered in soot piled high and hard
hold the world in secure chests
from cold so close so close so close; one heartbeat is much
like another inside the walls.

Her shadow falls on the ground
where the ticking of the pendulum
counts the patter of feet on tarmac;
the screech of treadmills and windmills
and shopping cart wheels under bridges
softened by the jingle of change in pockets;
clicks on tiled floors and subtle thudding
doors obscure the gurgle
of sewer pipe rivers below the earth.

Above the bellow of cars and the buzz of fire
alarms and the shrill chirp of human voices,
she owns the sky and the empty space.
Empty until she fills it
with the flutter of her wings
and the clear high pitch of joy.

Patti Marshock is an oncology nurse in Scottsdale, Arizona. She has two teenage daughters. Her work has appeared in A Cancer Poetry Anthology and online at 2 Riverview. 
E-mail at Marshock4@cs.com

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