Claude Wilkinson

A bobwhite sounds through larks

and jays, the wringing-wet shade,

as in the first world, before Adam

understood their sharp iambs,

when the refrain could’ve been

anything’s: plant or animal, or light

so pure it sang. Even now

how absolute, how wondrously

primitive the singularity rings –

shouting its name, its name,

its name… till from elsewhere

an echo swells through April-thick wings

as if addressing some question

on the presence of parallels.

Houses that crackled all day

with the rusty chirp

of hedge clippers,

summer’s chords of sparrows

and edgers, kids

springing on trampolines

now simmer like embers.

Glads and day lilies dream

under a street lamp’s

alabaster glow.

Sometimes a plane glides

loudly through the indigo

till it vanishes

behind the crown of pines,

till it’s again still enough

to consider this universe

of atoms embracing

into flowers and light and rain

for all the Junes that follow.

There’re days when we too

            do as little as fattening

                        among chrysanthemums, when

our lives must seem as mundane,

            and even clothes bind

                        like a chamber of dirt.

Yet, on a whim we can

            surface into the potpourri

                        of wild pink and jasmine

or drift to the singing of orioles –

            the joie de vivre

                        a world above

their tithes of scuffing,

            their blind wanderlust

                        through pebbles and bulbs.