Whippoorwill
In that crepuscular hour
when the crisp edge
of the oak leaf blurs
and fades in the failing light
until it is inextricable
from the backing sky,
the night is jarred
by the whippoorwill
repeating its name
in incessant narcissism.
I have never seen
its cryptic plumage
or nestless dwelling place
in the litter of the undergrowth.
I may have stepped an egg’s width
from its white-tipped tail,
but it has never flown.
It cartwheels over the grass-tips
of the invisible meadow
and feeds at the moon’s whim.
Because I have never seen
the whiskered beak,
the bark-like feathers
clumped as it sleeps
on a locust limb, unruffled
by the dappled noon
playing on its back
or the rain flicking
through the flinching leaves,
the whippoorwill has tricked me
into speaking its language.
Now, from the wood’s edge
its cretic call fills the night, resonates everywhere.
The note is wistful as a child’s whistle
at deepest dusk. A recollection
of coming home, long past supper,
unseen on the sidewalk
beyond the trapezoid of light
thrown from the kitchen window,
like the whippoorwill,
has named itself.