Cornell’s mobile app, Merlin, identifies
over 1,000 bird species by their sounds.
Kinglet, cardinal, phoebe, Carolina chickadee,
white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler,
red-breasted woodpecker, and perhaps
the most fun on the tongue: tufted titmouse.
Our cell phones knew, within one minute,
the chirps, chips, whistles, and calls
my husband and I had never noticed.
All these species hopping or hiding like sprites
in our poplars, beautyberries, and waving plume grasses.
Eckhart Tolle says to relish the birds, their songs,
our now-moments with them: Don’t rush
to find facts. But we do. Study pictures—
learn we had lumped at least four or five
plump, grey birds into one, which we called wren,
the way some of us sometimes group people
as if we all had the same mothers and fathers,
breakfast, roofs, rainfall, joys, savior.
I am sorry, birds, though you don’t know
the names we’ve given you. I am sorry, too,
that our own names sometimes separate us.
I’m listening now like a new mother
at midnight. Listening, just listening—
among revving cars, fan drone, board creaks—
for the stunning individual notes.
And for the living, whirring hum of all of us.
