The Wild

In the empty lot--a place

not natural, but wild--among

the trash of human absence,

the slough and shamble

of the city's seasons, a few

old locusts bloom.

A few woods birds

fly and sing

in the new foliage

--warblers and tanagers, birds

wild as leaves; in a million

each one would be rare,

new to the eyes. A man

couldn't make a habit

of such color,

such flight and singing.

But they're the habit of this

wasted place. In them

The ground is wise. They are

Its remembrance of what it is.