Today's poem is by Barbara Westwood Diehl

Holding My Phone Above My Head and Recording with the Bird ID App
       

I search. If there is a god, the god knows this.
I think, there must be a god with hands
that can wipe eagles and hawks right off the sky
like the guy at the diner
who clears the pie plates and coffee cups,
shoulders hunched.

For now, the world hides its bright feathers
in a fist behind its back. Finches clenched
like new nickels. I search
the roof ridges and power lines, the places
I've been told to search. The poplar
is choked with leaves. Only leaves.
The Open sign of the world is turned
to Closed.

Dust reshuffles itself. A papery air of farmers almanacs,
remedies and moons. Forecasts.
Crows in pairs, fine weather.
Seagulls flying inland, here comes rain.
I think I believed in gods and almanacs
once. I am told a Carolina Wren
is singing. I am told an American Robin is singing.
I am told to go slow, to sift through sound, to study shape,
but my hands want to grasp music by its feathered throat.

Why should I believe what I am told. I can't even imagine
what I hear singing.

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Copyright © 2024 Barbara Westwood Diehl All rights reserved
from Poetry South
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission