Howard Firkin
A boobook owl is buried underneath
a nut tree that I planted at my daughter’s
birth: its left wing broken, pinned, and broken;
the tree too young to fruit. Make sense of that.
Behind the town the hill is lost in fog—
might not be there—the street lights ember dull
and distant, and the few cars feint and vanish,
as vague as memory. I might have gone.
What do I leave? The frosted grasses, snow,
the spinebills and the wrens—four years I’ve lived here—
shadows on the lake, the sounds of tiny
forest birds as busy as the leaves.
a nut tree that I planted at my daughter’s
birth: its left wing broken, pinned, and broken;
the tree too young to fruit. Make sense of that.
Behind the town the hill is lost in fog—
might not be there—the street lights ember dull
and distant, and the few cars feint and vanish,
as vague as memory. I might have gone.
What do I leave? The frosted grasses, snow,
the spinebills and the wrens—four years I’ve lived here—
shadows on the lake, the sounds of tiny
forest birds as busy as the leaves.