Here’s what we need to know today: the owls are well.
It’s mating season and they’re calling
close to home. Wings wide
beside the streetlamp, sudden glow
and plumage pale. There has to be
a house fire somewhere for the morning news,
has to be a presidential outburst
better suited
to a prime time sitcom
built around dysfunctionality.
New moon. Spirit voices. Midnight’s meditation.
Morning and a shower
of goldfinches out of the sun, first light
moving barefoot down the street and yesterday’s
headlines fading in the clouds.
There’s a war
and there’s a cease-fire, a scandal
breaking with high crimes
in low places. It’s rush hour, the traffic lights
are blinking: left-wing, right-wing, and the hawks
who roost beside the golf course
have a wing for each side
but they’re gliding
above it all, gracefully intent
on catching prey while foreign policy
becomes more foreign and executive orders
blow coast to coast in a storm. It’s a Madison Avenue
country with a Wall Street appetite
and news blowing in from all directions.
Fire, flood, deportation,
give me tariffs or give me
a voice from the spirit world, something soft
as feathers calling up the day.
David Chorlton
.