What drew me to birding, after the ballads,
was the nomenclature, the names so dutifully
selected after blushed bellies, wedged tails,
wings and rumps and crowns and homes,
With thanks to Christian Cooper and Kyu Lee
What drew me to birding, after the ballads,
was the nomenclature, the names so dutifully
selected after blushed bellies, wedged tails,
wings and rumps and crowns and homes,
and the seekers who had learned every bird’s
first, middle, and last names, names
they would declare so fluently no matter how
multisyllabic and hyphenated the dazzle
that flew into view, this devotion to practice
and delivery of precision enthralled me
the first season I learned how to spot warblers,
passerines that glistened every urban forest,
a rainbow of migrating minis far above a gaggle
of watchers boasting taxonomy, I was entangled
too, in the earthy garden of our city park,
just past six when sunbeams trickle through
the trees, pooling beneath the underbrush,
I found a tiptoeing birder, whispering an invite
when he met my eye, transfixed by a visiting
thrush, foraging between dried leaves,
and after it flitted away, he asked for my name
and its spelling before I headed toward another
grove, and as I reached the end of the winding
path, an urgent call, my name booming, beckoned
me back, an elusive blackburnian was piercing
the air, a warbler I had never seen, a sighting
that the birder promised would change me,
so we circled the same locust, angling our necks
every which way, a flutter of apologies
for the delay, until that tiny little thing finally
hopped onto a lower branch, and I gasped
at his throat scintillant like the orange ripple
of campfire, delighted, we high-fived after
it vanished to another canopy, a second round
of farewells, and I walked back to the street,
forgetting the pattern of the blackburnian’s notes,
instead, echoing in the woodlot, the music
of that callback, a new voice reciting my name
perfectly, like a coveted song you sharpen your ear
to, one you wait your whole life to hear.
