Morning Talk

(Not the kind of tree I'm talking about in today's poem ... but I thought I'd share my little watercolor sketch with you)

I like to think that poems come to me ... and they will, I've discovered, if I can just sit still in one place long enough.

This one may not have come to me, exactly, but I found the material for it in the tree just outside my window.

I sat listening to a certain sound, then located its source ... and watched.

From there it was simply a matter of putting my impressions on paper before they ... the impressions, that is ... flew away.

I admit that I found more than just the sights and sounds of a mother-and-daughter exchange between two cardinals to write about.

Before I'd finished, I couldn't resist drawing the parallel between these two beautiful little creatures and the rest of us ... 

we superior beings who "own" so much of this material world ... and are, perhaps, so bent on possessing more of it ... that we neglect to build little bridges between us ... particularly between the generations.

End of sermon. 

And now, on to the poem:

MORNING TALK

Amid a rising tide of summer sounds,
I slowly become aware of one pair 
catching my ear more than the others.

Then there they are, a mother cardinal
and her offspring, flitting and talking
to each other in the blue spruce.

Talking of food, perhaps, or safety
in these thick boughs, weighty subjects,
or maybe just chit-chat between

 
this mother and her young daughter.
I have no way of knowing, but they
seem to have found an understanding,

a quiet accord, like a gently swaying 
footbridge between the generations,
that we humans keep hoping to find.
© 2003

(originally published in Capper's) 

Today's word: chit-chat