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Three Evensongs
by BJ Buckley

i.

Melodic
flutter, metal-whistle
trill,
chitter, chuckle, Cheer!
churr,

sudden
Shostkovich—jazz honk
geese
drown out
the vesper
choir.
Homing. Here, here, here!
Bright pond, new green
alfalfa,
watered hayfield rich
in bug
and worm. Then honk
for honking's
sake, sweet noise
of comfort.
They take a long time
to be still.

Owl, after.
Kildeer.   (kildeer    killdeer)
And late,
and almost lost,
marsh wren.
Rail.

ii.

Even songs
familiar slip half-
known
through shadows:
Radios
from passing cars,
snippets grafted
to the root
of ear,
belly-felt
bass bump, blues
arc, git-tar
wail
those sirens
predatory
in the darkness
howling
everything
is music:
Body
cello-strung
the lungs'
accordion
wheeze, a whistle
past
the graveyards
where our dust is
twinkle twinkle
scattered silt
of stars.


iii.

Drone
beneath
the silence. Hum
unheard in hive
in dark
except through skin
of palm placed
gently—same
harmonic
infinite
of spheres (are
you in Heaven,
Kepler? you were
true—
they ring
bowled crystal whose
wet finger
spinning
no one
knows)

Full dark.
There is an absence
in the field
a grass
quiet
vole vacancy
no owl
tonight
gone hungry
ghosts
all given up
as hemiquavers
fading into
tremolo
death's
long       fermata
rising moon
green specter over
earth afloat
with voices—

cricket-click
mouse murmur
(Kepler,
can you hear
us, do the dead
sing?)



 

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