In Which I Attempt a Splash of Rhyme and a Bit of Emotional Longing for the Mating Season.

If only there could be
some small thing
to which the two birds
outside my window sing their song;
them full-throated thrushes
by the wood pile,
by the shed out back
covered in dead autumn brushes
and fire red leaves of Indian paintbrush
that break and shudder
when I touch,
worship them.
They beg you to come back.

Gentle this gloaming breeze be,
so how can it stir
so violently at night,
keeping news of what it keeps
behind jail bars of
terrorized mountain ice—
what does it keep to itself?
Pinnacles of homemade craggy crowns,
razed glacial thrones of kings,
looking down with hollowed eyes and
purpled fingers mottled from the cold.
How quickly all hallowed lays waste.

A movement, a stirring gust,
a ghost has flown its coop
maddening evermore within me,
this spectre haunts,
frightening the cat on the stoop
and the baby in the cradle
that was sleeping not two minutes before.
I search in shadowy closets,
through open doors,
pockets of moth-eaten coats
and rusty books
but come back with empty hands.
They are long and drawn in
with fine pencil
not now harmed,
only untouched.