Spring

Today

just a few moments ago

I sat outside listening to the birds

singing outside the way they do

when summer is promised and spring

is here and winter is gone. They sang

together. Him and Her. Them together.

Back and forth in ecstasy of their sort

in the trees up high and I listened.

At that moment a child and his father

passed by. The child wearing a helmet

as children do when they ride a bike

even with training wheels as he did

and the father rather solemn and looking

down not at the child, just walking along

and the little boy said, “Kerloo Kerloo.

I hear a sound. I hear them. I hear them now,”

and the father thinking perhaps as I did

moments before of the car

that failed to work or the taxes due

and the amount of money or debt invisible

and the gold or silver that isn’t really there

didn’t reply too preoccupied I suppose,

but the boy kept saying,

“I hear them. I hear them now,” and I said,

“I do too. I hear them now little brother.

I hear them now with you.”

ƒ