Three Poems

David P. Miller

April Twenty-Eight

The light of four p.m.

arouses two colors

at the twig-ends of our neighbor’s

backyard dogwood –

green of new leaves below,

tight maroon bracts above.

A cake in two layers,

red velvet and pistachio.

Had I seen this before?

The sunlight’s angle narrows

toward dusk. Half of the maroon

is already greening.

A squirrel roots its snout in the yellow ranunculus spread

behind the house, as if our five trees were a bosque:

the word our neighbor used, smiling on this scrap of ground.

Grackles at the feeder: this morning’s most-likely-to-succeed,

jerking fluorescent blue heads side to side, they muscle out

the sparrows, those old colonists. Nothing pummels us grackles:

that could be their motto until they flee, in an instant,

like every other wing in the yard except a sharp-shinned hawk’s,

settled silently on one branch, buff, stolid, mute.

Maybe the magnolia blossoms two houses to the side

will hold their branches though the next rains. Maybe the forecast

won’t shift by the hour. Maybe the silhouette

flown across the next house was our guest raptor,

hungry, bored, discouraged. A squirrel’s ventured out to a fencepost.

I need no defense, listening to the tone arm’s click into place

as the back yard remains without birds, a flying V stitches the blue,

and the old Chopin LP rotates to neutral.

I used to think that turning was a matter of course.

Will a bat come out to hem the dusk again?

How many eyes would I need to see it?

Time goes on and it is night. Maybe there will always be light

in that vertical window opposite, as long as its house stands,

while, still, no one will ever appear in its frame.

That would be a comfort. Why, I don’t know.

For now, I’ll call it my luck, the way front steps and telephone poles

shift position as my feet propel me, keeping my falling body upright,

balancing heels with toes after all this time.

I say thank you to distances, thank you to bas-relief sights.

It’s not possible for me to put my hands on nothing.

Avian Love Call

First, given our near-primal need for streetlights to counter city darkness –

second, given urban nights without jackhammers, weed whackers, delivery vans’

monotone backup belches, plus the rarity of fire engines, the blessed decline in showoff car alarms that I swear nobody gave a damn about –

third, given robins, aroused by artificial light, confident broadcasters in near-silence –

what results? Their mate-seeking

calls, pinging my eardrums this 4:00 a.m.

Birds singing in the dark! I tell myself, though it’s not truly dark

and they’re not scatting for my benefit.

Given that my mind’s a listener, and wakefulness in dark light’s an opportunity,

I’m at the front window, listening to a long ribbon of robin. Could be two of them,

given unpaused bird song streamed between nearer and further distance.

I don’t expect to see them. But also don’t expect to see two human bodies,

thin, tall and short, silhouettes in bird-waking streetlight,

with four elbows, four knees hinging as they shift their feet toward the subway station.

But that’s closed till 6:00. What’s the story of this wee-hours tramp?

This passing shadow-puppet play with mystery plot and robin-romance soundtrack.

I propel my own joints back to bed, beneath a sheet by the open window

of an unhoped-for cool night. It’s a question

if I’ll remain awake enough to hear the robins sing themselves sated,

or if I’ll return to sleep before they do. No one’s awake to tell me.