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.”
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