The Planet as a Second Language

A juniper titmouse pauses in rapping
A hard seed on a trunk to let out a trill
And then resumes its work. It’s just the one trill,

And wouldn’t you love to know what that’s about?
Is it a territorial announcement,
Apropos of no other bird you can see,

No one else hammering in the neighborhood,
No other other rolling trills or cheeps? A raven
Plocks a chortle in mid-flight, far off, that’s all.

Maybe it was the small bird’s equivalent
Of a stretch or sigh in the midst of a task,
A shift to get a better grip on the seed.

But you don’t know. And if you can’t understand
A fragment of basic whistling from a bird,
What chance do you have to converse with the Earth?