Evening Echoes

Just-evening sun shouts at me eye-level

across my loaded desk.

Hidden birds giggle and caw

from the live-oak limbs above;

A sad "peek-a-boo" plays

at three-beat intervals.

A toddler tortures a squeaky toy endlessly

somewhere behind me across the street.

Far-off traffic, rolling in my left ear,

roars a perpendicular, complacent "Whish!"

"Cheer-too! Cheer-too! Cheer-too! Cheer-too!"

a cardinal calls nearby and waits.

"Peek! Peek! Peek!" snoops far away.

"Chit-chit-chit-chit" clucks "I told you so!"

"Whistle-whistle" laughs it off close by.

"Chew-toe! Chew-toe! Chew-toe! Chew-toe!"

The cardinal, proudly creative, resumes.

A mockingbird's clear solo steals the stage

With a delightfully silly succession of songs--

the virtuoso flirts with sound.

"Chee-oo-toe!" The cardinal's last word?

The sun is silent on my page,

And gray reminds me I had work to do,

But what could have been so important, after all,

As the sweet sounds of evening floating

Through the windows of my soul!

--CJW--