The Earth once sang in warbles,
yellow breast of ruffled feathers,
gold face glinting in the sun
as dark olive wings cut the air.
In a dream I saw Bachman’s warbler
on a cypress tree, wreathed
with Spanish moss, silver tendrils
hanging from its black beak, building
a nest along bayou waters,
neighbor to egret and alligator.
Black glistening eyes stared into mine
as it warbled the song of a squeaky hinge.
How odd, I thought, to dream
in extinct species. To imagine
the feathered image of life’s
forgotten form. Weave a nest
inside my brain, huddle behind
my eyes as I sleep, only
never
fly
away. The last human
who witnessed a live warbler died
in his sleep last year after
decades of reliving the memory of your face.
Tell me, did he dream of you
each night, eyelids fluttering
in soundless slumber? When
he died, did you? Two centuries
from now, one human will
be the keeper of the memory of birds.
She’ll tell stories of feathered flight,
beings as light as air scooping
beetles from the wind. She’ll dream
birds into being each night,
remembering the dying breaths of birdsong,
recalling a bird she read about once
in the dictionary of the dead:
How Bachman’s warbler never sings
in migratory flight, but roams the waves of ocean foam,
alighting on the tallest bald cypress
lapped by quiet bayou waters,
waiting for a brain to call home.
yellow breast of ruffled feathers,
gold face glinting in the sun
as dark olive wings cut the air.
In a dream I saw Bachman’s warbler
on a cypress tree, wreathed
with Spanish moss, silver tendrils
hanging from its black beak, building
a nest along bayou waters,
neighbor to egret and alligator.
Black glistening eyes stared into mine
as it warbled the song of a squeaky hinge.
How odd, I thought, to dream
in extinct species. To imagine
the feathered image of life’s
forgotten form. Weave a nest
inside my brain, huddle behind
my eyes as I sleep, only
never
fly
away. The last human
who witnessed a live warbler died
in his sleep last year after
decades of reliving the memory of your face.
Tell me, did he dream of you
each night, eyelids fluttering
in soundless slumber? When
he died, did you? Two centuries
from now, one human will
be the keeper of the memory of birds.
She’ll tell stories of feathered flight,
beings as light as air scooping
beetles from the wind. She’ll dream
birds into being each night,
remembering the dying breaths of birdsong,
recalling a bird she read about once
in the dictionary of the dead:
How Bachman’s warbler never sings
in migratory flight, but roams the waves of ocean foam,
alighting on the tallest bald cypress
lapped by quiet bayou waters,
waiting for a brain to call home.
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Patrick Morgan is a Louisiana writer originally from Watertown, New York. His poems have appeared in Valiant Scribe and Catholic Poetry Room. His writings about poetry can be found in We Are Already One: Thomas Merton's Message of Hope: Reflections to Honor His Centenary (Fons Vitae), The Pocket Instructor: Literature (Princeton University Press), and The Pocket Instructor: Writing (Princeton University Press).
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