Check out the shuffle on that playlist,
Hear what the distracted winds blew in –
No set idea for moving the day forward
On its juddering platters of cloud,
Its noisy centerpiece this mockingbird
Hurled from who knows where,
Not performing the standard repetoire:
No sweet cardinal chips,
No blue jay buzz saw graffiti,
No robin’s fluted whinny.

I have resigned too much of this world
To a busy mystery –
All of the birds I have no names for,
The fabulous unknown insects gripping
The frame of my front door –
Thomas Jefferson liked knowing things,
Kept a mockingbird in a cage,
Boasted there was nothing like it
In all of Europe. When he awoke each morning,
What melodies called from behind the metal bars,
What new language did he learn?

When she was still here, she asked me to follow her
To the top of the hill behind our house –
A mockingbird, squat on a telephone wire,
Familiar medley at dusk for days.
Today things can’t seem to settle,
Sunshine and distant thunder,
This wind, lacking all confidence and direction,
This strange mockingbird, sharing secret songs
As if I should have always known them all.

(First published in Book of Matches #12, Fall 2024. Thanks to the editors.)