Mark Burke
ELEANOR WOULD SAY
Two steel hangers
hooked into a long stiff line, she hung
the wooden shoe-box house
on a cedar branch outside the kitchen window.
She’d lift the green roof, fill it with seeds,
watch the towhees and juncos
flit back and forth to the feeder.
It takes so long to get good at life
and then it’s over she’d say.
When the snow came, I’d hear her
talking to herself, saying how heartless
the world can be as she slid out
slippery pucks of suet she’d made,
millet, sunflower seeds and bacon fat
frozen in old tuna tins to bring the flickers,
the pileated woodpecker king in his red crown.
It is a stone arithmetic,
what the days give and take away.
Sitting in the rocker getting her buzz on,
she’d count them as they darted past,
sewing her into their silence.
Like an augur advising
whatever nobility would listen,
she’d look into the yard
and announce what the day would hold,
winged souls swimming the air.
Early dusk, zinfandel in hand,
she’d call me to come over and watch
the wrens and chickadees gather,
their courtesy, the manner of their lives.
It took years to understand
how the patient crowds,
the flutter of small bodies
perched on the vine-maple branches
became her first comfort,
each darting quick as a thought,
voices drifting like faint bells,
stitching the days into a life.
Mark Burke’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Nimrod International Journal and others. His work has recently been nominated for a Pushcart prize. markanthonyburkesongsandpoems.com