The morning chorus wakes me
as it does every morning
before sunrise.

I run under cloudy skies.
In the southwest, a warning
clash disturbs my thoughts of poetry.

In evening light enough to read,
I sit on the carport, skimming words
Billy Collins wrote about some ordinary thing.

Mocking birds and the flock of robins sing.
When it grows too dark to read, the birds
sing and will through the night. A bead

of water from the heavy rain that fell
turns loose on the car hood, leaving a trail
like a slug would across the concrete floor.

I do not rise and go inside before
remembering those nights in Germany a nightingale
sang just before midnight, remembering that ode of  Keats.

I miss how you felt, naked,  between clean sheets.