#560: No Birds

It’s good to be home.
Alone for a few days
while my wife and son
drive back from SoCal.

Imagine a house
with no one in it.
Imagine a back yard
with no people in it.

The music back there.
Bees buzz now that Spring
has sprung, and that thing
we bought, chimes in the wind.

I’m lying. There may be wind
but no bells. What other
music back there? Distant
sounds of cars, a siren.

Asked to describe the sound
a place makes with no people.
Everything that lives back
there is quiet. Dogs bark.

The plants do their thing
and the bugs do their thing
mostly in silence, unless one’s
ears could amplify spiders’ legs

or leaves sprouting from branch,
as they will do any day now.
The grass greens, weeds sneak
around, get ready to flower.

I’m not supposed to mention
these flying things, without
which, the yard and its army
of oaks would be a deeply quiet green.

I can’t even say their names.