THE POEM OF THE DAY
Mockingbird War
A parabola
drawn by the quick of the eye
on summer morning blue
sags into wire
strung between utility poles,
two pines
lopped and stripped,
dipped in creosote and planted so that
electricity can flow,
so that we can have
our light and power,
so that two mockingbirds
can perch on each his own lookout
and oppose the other
in song.
Their stolen notes ring
like battle cries at Troy
or Shiloh.
Stolen notes are flung
like a trebuchet flings a volley
of severed heads over the enemy’s walls.
Stolen notes spray
like bullets from a Maxim gun
cutting down charging Zulus, or doughboys.
Stolen notes rattle
and gurgle
like a sucking chest wound.
Stolen notes assemble
A nocturne in daylight,
A weird chorus
like that of wounded soldiers
left in the field
under the shivering light
of the Aurora Borealis
the night of the first day
of the battle of Fredricksburg.
All these things I hear
in birdsong.
My ears are not peaceful anymore.
At the end of each burst of song
the mockingbird
on the shorter pole
leaps straight up into air
higher than the other mockingbird’s pole,
and drops back his perch
a warrior taunting his foe: here I am.
The song goes on.
The song goes on and on.
Will this song of war ever end?
Dana Pattillo
PoD 118
4:35:20 PM 
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