Their Chemical Language

a poem

The people who know,

ornithologists they’re called,

say that what we hear as song is really struggle.

Birds singing in a tree are saying mine, mine, mine.

My branch, my buds, my bugs, my fruit, all mine.

Marking territory. Cementing alliances. Protecting kith and kin.

It makes me wonder about god. Does he hear such

music in our strife? Does he sit up there, on his porch in heaven,

as I do here, on my porch on earth, and listen contentedly?

Song as confirmation: all is right in the world.

We are his image after all.

On the same porch, an army of ants mobilize to relocate

uneaten cat kibble to their winter stockpiles.

Two ants haul a piece twice their size

across the vast tundra of deck, down the side

of the stone walls that hold up this house.

By the afternoon, the surface

will be clear, no trace of leftovers. Nothing gone to waste.

Like the birds, they communicate too.

How did we get so lucky, I hear them ask,

antennae twitching, in their chemical language.

This unexpected bounty, just when we need it most.

How like me, to see bird as beauty, ant as pest,

to mistake flashing feathers and a sweet tune

for hope, when all along, it was at my feet,

in motion, working.

Image: Maksim Shutov