Scoundrel Time

Wing Banger

I have heard a cicada crawled out of the dark
silences of the mountain after years
eating its heart out, to join its luck
its wet green wings clicking to the mountain choir
dewdrop blackbird twig-snap stone-throw
and the wind playing on things carried the voices of the choir
patterning them to the tractor judder and the helicopter whirr
and went off to stroke the water leaving you listening
with the choir and all cut through the very corpse and armor
of the speech out of which the witless clicking
and tapping of worlds beneath the clicking begins
shuffling and shoveling and making things up
no matter how many buckets you carry
how much muscle you give it as you garden