Summer singing madly
Over empty lot

The still grass
Stands near alone
Before the final crew comes
With trucks and blueprints and concrete
To slap together rent fortune
For the white cadillac man.

Summer swinging madly
Over empty lot

The post oaks
Hesitate along lot edge,
Wait to see what happens
To the few brave mesquite:
Better to stand on edges
And wait
Than venture
To vulnerable heart
Of empty lot.

Summer winging madly
Over empty lot

The birds wing madly over
Rarely dropping
To the grass for seeds;
They sit upon the postoaks
At the edge
And keep a watchful eye
Upon the road.
All wing madly to the edge:
Grackles, swifts, and doves,
The mockingbirds, all
Save one persistent meadowlark
Without a mate
That sings each morning
From the wire,
One silly songster
That loneliness has blinded
And brought to chime
Its idyll
Summer song
Over empty lot.

Summer singing madly
Over empty lot.

Broadwing whorl
Rise light through morning mist
Disaggregated flock among the trees;
Lift sun-drawn with the thermal
Plume and talon
To the cloud,
Swarm swirling
Hawks
Together through the shaft.

Fill the airy mortsleam,
Stream southward from the brim,
Pour pinnate spiral spilling 'cross the sky;
Defy dispersing magnet of the earth
Wing skyward down,
Flow river in the sky to nether lands.

Mockingbird, mockingbird
Singing all night
How clever
You imitate me.
Your search
For the truth
Of your own song
Seems fruitless
When the phrases of others
Chime loud in your head.

Mockingbird, mockingbird
Silence is loud
And the night
Without music is long.
So we fumble
For voice
In the dark
That surrounds us
Find song of our hearts
In the light of our dreams.

Wood thrush
Voice rush
Ringing in the wilderness;
Your phrases fill the summer calm
With perfect meter throstle thrummed
In timely repetition.

Wood thrush
Voice rush
Ringing in my ears;
Defy interpretation with your metaphoric strains -
Spell still meaning, clearly,
Mere beauty in the wood.

Wood thrush
Voice rush
Ringing in the air;
I've oft' pursued your fleeting lines
Through mired web of brush and fallen trees
In search of some concluding note
And perhaps vision
Of the higher source of song.