Wood winds

In the fading light

of the steadily failing night,

the tufted peewee perched in our pin oak

pipes like Pan,

decorating the dusk

with melodies more piercing than pricksong.

Shaken from their slumber,

the nocturnal bees of autumn

ring my ears with the music of wings.

Lovers of fine nectar,

they drink from the fermenting persimmons

which dot the dingle behind our house,

where owls hoot like horns in the moonlight,

and the goatsucker

flings abroad his fluted arpeggio.

Flying crooked like kites without a tail,

falling leaves

from our dogwood trees

paint the air of this November evening

with pigments

from a pastel palette.

In the darkness

a woodpecker drums on a distant sycamore.

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society