Almost Autumn

For Poets United, Poetry Pantry. The birds are vanishing from the skies.

Almost Autumn
“Birds were created to record everything. They were not designed just to be beautiful jewels in the sky, but to serve as the eyes of heaven.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

For the first time since April
the morning was cool.
The autumnal equinox swings through the heavens.
Wind rustles through the dried leaves
on the cornstalks,
crickets sing their tenor songs,
the bees sleepily droning.
But,
where was the sound of birds?
Had they all slipped into the southward migration?
Mast is heavy in the woods –
gonna be a hard winter.
But,
no sound of cardinals or sparrows,
no twitting of finches.
I listened, hearing only the sound
of the blood in my body,
the beating of my heart.
But,
no birds.
Where have the birds gone?