Green Linden Press

Birdsong in the Time of Quarantine

I am living
on birdsong—

the sunrise
reveries of the fog-

silvered morning,
a busy hour

I’ve never been still
enough to know

until now, here.
I now know

these bright,
varied melodies

are not music
but the innate,

lonesome cries
of the world’s oldest

need: hear me,
hear me, find me.

But isn’t this what
every song ever was?

I—as quiet
as a broken syrinx—

will never tire
of this: this

din of desire,
this wild chorus

of the new day’s
ritual, this riotous

waking into song.

Benjamin Cutler is an award-winning poet and author of the full-length book of poetry, The Geese Who Might be Gods (Main Street Rag 2019). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times and has appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Pembroke Magazine, and The Lascaux Review, among many others. In addition, Benjamin is a high-school English teacher in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina where he lives with his wife and children and plays on the local rivers and trails. You can connect with him and his work at BenjaminCutlerPoet.com.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2020