It Is Quiet Out There

It is quiet out there now. She Takes her hat, stick and forage bag, Into which she slips her pruners, then Slides her feet into green clogs, feeling Quite exurban-agrarian, ready to look Under brush piles and into cottonwoods -- In every place that might consent to harbor Even a hint of birds' music. They have flown, The silence tells her; those that haven't died.

Out along the roadside she waves to cars, Understanding her neighbors have to drive, Then pockets up her apples, rose hips, leaves That now are turning away from green: cat's ear, High mallow, chicory, plantain, sow thistle, her Ears pricked for passing flights of geese.

Really, thinks she to herself, there ought Even now to be more birds. There are Not so many feral cats round here as that. Or could it be the sprays? She supposes War has been declared. A war on song.