Preparing for Bed

The way their wings in flight sound
Like soft decks of cards shuffled
Hard by a showy dealer,

The house finches in the sage
Can be startling at evening—
That quick-drummed riffling from shade

And then the reassuring
Cheeping and trilling. Bedtime.
Birds declining everywhere,

Humans blaming each other
As greater chaos descends.
The pair with the summer nest

Return now in late autumn.
No eggs this time. Just to live
Until next spring, just to live.