I’ve been shooing vagrants or varmants out of my garden all this spring
I can’t tell which they are.  It’s dark and I’m near sighted
So sometimes I have to let details go to the devil and just take a guess

We’re out on a walk and I ask: “Was that a robin or a baltimore oriel?”
I could tell if it would just make a sound
But an orangey, brown, reddish flash in a bush – – -?

The biological facts of identification have to be set aside in favor of
The feel of the thing.
Suddenly a bird or mayby last year’s tattered leaf skitters across the lawn

It does get stuck in a bush now and sits there aquivering
But where are its flocky friends
Whoops, off it goes

Further on the walk I am startled by a lump of dirt
It darts across my path from left to right and takes up a position
Just beside a rabbit hole  – – – oh

The wind makes a little tornado out of a pile of leaves
They swirll around my head and get caught in a privit hedge
Now they’re singing in chorous