Pecking Order                                                                                                   —Robert Gibb


First the harlequin-masked cardinal,
Crest sleeked back, red the way the robin is,

Only in the song. After that the chickadees,
Their black-capped micro-bursts,

The patchwork-quilted turkeys
Scrounging the ground for seeds.

In the bird book they’re grouped by species,
Distinguishing marks,

Each a carbon copy of its kind.
Each a dead ringer

In the museum where I first discovered them
Arranged in order like the elements.

Now one of the congregate sparrows
Darts back down to the feeder, 

And that bird the smoke-streaked sepia
Of the old industrial Pittsburgh dusk.

Titmouse, goldfinch, warbler, wren ... 
Then, round-robin, the cardinal again.


 

Chickadee


Resignation’s darling—
He’s the only bird left at the feeder,
Staring straight up

Into the spicules of rain
That have been falling again
All day. In on myself,

Days in a row at the windows,
I’m haunting the house,
Rammy to get back to my body

Wrist-deep in the steeping mat
Of compost out back,
Tucking lettuce in its frilly beds,

Spacing the string-staked drills.
Again this morning
I watched that line of light

As it widened into the sky,
The world taking root in the rain
To fast-forward past me,

The way it does each spring.
I check and that small bird’s
Still out there, staring up

Into the downpour
Into which he’ll disappear
When even he has had his fill.

When, another day, the titmouse
Flays its seeds,
Head manic as a telegraph key.
 

Robert Gibb

Robert Gibb's books include The Origins of Evening (1997), which was a National Poetry Series winner. Among his other awards are two NEA Fellowships, a Best American Poetry, and a Pushcart Prize. A new book, After, winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize (Mark Doty, judge), was published this spring.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2017