In “Timber Wings,” the speaker looks back on a wild pigeon that used to visit Hinkley’s timber, tracing gray loops above walnuts and hazel. The bird returns in memory along with a whole summer—rain, sun, the calls of other pigeons—but this one felt special. Years later, the speaker still hears its song as a kind of quiet teaching about night, death, stars, and why a whippoorwill has only three notes. Time has collapsed: the memory is “so long ago” and yet also “like now and today.” The repetition of “So there is...” at the end turns remembering into a form of keeping. The final image—a gray wing beating against the speaker’s shoulder—makes the bird feel physically close, not gone. The mood is tender, hushed, and slightly mystical, as if the natural world once offered a secret the speaker still carries.
Timber Wings — Summary
There was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley's timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley's timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. There was a summer. It is so long ago I saw this wild pigeon and listened. It is so long ago I heard the summer song of the pigeon who told me why night comes, why death and stars come, why the whippoorwill remembers three notes only and always. It is so long ago; it is like now and today; the gray wing pigeon's way of telling it all, telling it to the walnuts and hazel, telling it to me. So there is memory. So there is a pigeon, a summer, a gray wing beating my shoulder.