Bye, Bye, Blackbirds

Again I see them
trundlin’ funky plumed ebonies
across the sibilant grass
on the lawn in the city park,
absorbin’ light like doomed sinners,
and makin’ crooked un-songs
with their squeakin’ syrinxes.
They care nothin’ for harmonics,
tune.
Just busy at beetles, worms, bein’ birds.
Sometimes they startle up
in a flare of wind
and claw the score of my mind
and
I get a jam
of throttled squawks, purple-crackled
 dissonance
  in my own larynx.
For all that,
tonight I love them just the same:
I, too, have no gift for song,
and where, I wonder,
have they learned all that
hilarious black melancholy?

John Solensten