Bird Calls

High summer,

and I hear a bird call

on my cell phone.

There’s a letter

in the in-box,

the first of the day.

“And the music has changed

to a chorus of Hebrew slaves,

Nabucco, opera by Verdi.

I’m listening to it on MP3.

“Was up early, at five.

There’s a faint line of clouds

behind the hills, like an echo.

This is a bird watcher’s paradise.”

Was up early myself,

to a kite’s screech

that knifed the air.

There are hills, low, hidden

by my own trees whose fruit

is green, unripe, hail-damaged.

The days are not sweet.