Natalie Cooke’s ‘Bird Song’

from 100 Poets

Last year I began a list of birds at my window
recording their whims and peregrinations, and my own 
imperfect knowledge (and lack of application).
Currawong, it starts boldly, cuckoo-shrike, wattlebird
before some sort of thornbills (?) – all brown…
Perhaps they’ll return.

I dug out a field guide, dived into descriptors, 
compared fuscous and rufous, ratite and struthious,
then sounded out dihedral, superloral, nidifugous.

I composed a silent chorus of plaintive warble, 
falling reels and froglike croaks 
with a counterpoint of whip-crack
thin tinkling, scolding notes.

Paper’s a pied piper; I twitched adjectives
for hours, staked out nouns, pished verbs,
deaf to my surroundings, tail-up in words.

Then this evening three currawongs—
all black against the reddening dusk—
called a question through the glass
and I looked up and 
heard.