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Thursday, August 1, 2019

The Catbird (John James Audubon), Sonnet #468

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.


















As if ashamed of its homely feathers,
The cowbird disowns its young in the nest.
In those it didn’t build it abandons 
An egg among the eggs of its betters,
Who raise the cowbird along with the rest.
(The intruder will steal from the small ones.)
Parents who can identify their own,
Catbirds fling the parasites out like stones.
They mew incessantly, then sing countless
Notes per minute — clucks, whines, gurgles, clicks, squawks,
Imitations of other birds but hawks.
Even more than most, the catbird’s restless;
Endlessly curious or vigilant,
It flies — the only time it is silent.

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

VILLANELLE

The moment passed and I forget
The reason why or what I meant
In the exact instant I let

It go like a blank letter sent
To someone I don’t remember.
Even Now is an old event,

Both a flaming and an ember.
To hold, even touch, is to burn
Like September in December.

It takes but a second to learn,
What no-one else will ever know,
That all I am will soon return

If I stand not still but think slow,
Say nothing, and as if asleep,
Allow myself to come and go.

Instead, I cannot help but leap
Ahead to what’s to come and let
My self reach for what it can’t keep,
Moments I already forget.