next to my house
in a towering maple’s highest crook
I’ve wedged an empty soup can
open side angled up
with a string attached to its bottom end
tautly drawn down unencumbered
through an open window
joined to another tin
affixed on a special stand
atop the table beside my bed
I press my ear against each night
to listen in on
that world far up in treetops
where darkness frightens every sound
into the barest hush
briefest expression of loss or gain
I have over time
learned to appreciate
comprehend in the complex music
of stressed vibrations
intoned against my ear
the muted wing
swoosh and whoof
of invisible migrating flocks
skeined in midnight chevrons
smooth velvet thrum of a hungry spider
spinning her starlit web
a moth’s exhausted wingbeat buzz
caught within the can’s cold chamber
summer rains clinking drum
the creaks of wind bent boughs
gauze caught sigh of a full blue moon
mourning morning’s bright ascension
a caterpillars crawl
the after-hum of a murmur of swallows
trapped in verdant leaf pores
plink of twigs
upon the long string’s span
march of swarming army ants
advancing on a secret foe
***
By NEIL BROSNAN: alternative conversation
and finally
before I sleep
this response…
the drawn out whispered names
of those I’ve loved
held
longed for
and lost
let loose into the heavens.