Scarlet Tanager
We’re off to the woods. You come too!
(Kill that phone, you iIdiot.)
Let’s be first to greet his return.
For surely he’s arrived
By the fifth of May,
Our little high priest of the Andes.
(But who can be sure
Of anything anymore.)
The only begotten bird of the sunset,
Who comes to judge the splendor of the May.
We’re under the canopy
Of more light than shade—
The new tiny leaves
In their natal green,
The cascades of painted trillium,
The purple isles of hepatica
Are things to remember Paradise by.
The shits who toss
These plastic water bottles
Ought to be droned.
Can’t you feel it—can’t you?
No mosquitoes or biting flies!
Come July this path is the Via Cruca.
We’ve sent off a sunning ribbon snake
To thread the quilt of last year’s leaves—
And hear that trill?
The toads are courting in the marshes.
If only this woods stretched on for miles.
If only road traffic couldn’t be heard.
There goes a spring azure!—
All these dead trees.
If only we hadn’t imported the ash borer.
—And here comes a mourning cloak.
Jesus, the partridgeberry
Is blooming in May.
Please don’t step
On the rue anemone.
Listen! The oriole!
The joyful Baltimore oriole—
He’s back from Colombia,
Whistling his work into play!
And that’s the old-man’s snore
Of the blue-winged warbler—
See him on the branch,
The little guy in gold?
No, his wings are never blue.
And the red-eye from Ecuador
Has flown in the vireo!
That’s him we hear now—the red-eyed,
Resuming his daylong filibuster.
And listen: the ovenbird!—
His rather irritable emanation
From the understory.
Okay, he’s not so crazy to be back,
But he’s arrived nonetheless
And so welcome our amigo from the Yucatan.
So many fellow travelers
Have returned from the tropics,
And so surely he’s back
In his miracle red-ripeness—
Our sacred heart
In the breast of the woods
Who must be seen
To be believed—
We are all Doubting Thomases
Before our spring's first tanager.
Look for him
In the canopy
Like a ruby bud
In a rosebush,
Like a blood drop
From a finger-prick
Of the hand of God.
There he is!
No, sorry—
It’s just a cardinal.
Just.
Oh, ever-faithful cardinal,
Our gallant scarlet friend
Through all the seasons,
What can we say?
Forgive us this idolatry
Of one who comes and goes.
But so much fondness
Grows in his absence,
And you are of the rich
Who will always be with us.
Plus, the birdfeeders,
The ones I fill for you all winter,
Don’t forget about those.
Friends, this olive is invasive
And it’s everywhere.
Hear that?
The horror! The horror!
Guess.
Take out those ear buds!
Gray tree frog.
His schoolmarm soprano hysterics.
Those blasted hunters—
Pick up that shell casing, will you?
Now shut up
And listen for the scarlet tanager.
Listen for his
Not-quite-the-robin’s song
That is also
Not-quite-the-rose-breasted-grosbeak’s.
A little wood satyr!—
See him in the sunray
On the mayapple?
Off he goes,
Our little woodland book
Of common prayer.
And the dragonfly
That just zipped past,
Strikingly lime?
Eastern pondhawk.
A truly voracious predator,
Forever a minor confusion away
From devouring itself.
Listen! That chick-burr!
Did you hear it?
Can you hear it?
That’s him!
That’s the signature call
Of the scarlet tanager!
This way. This way.
Shhh. Hear him?
He’s somewhere up there
In the budding maples.
There! On the bough!
There he is!
Scarlet tanager!
Our first scarlet tanager.
My friends, how did we survive
The winter without this flame?
Yes, he is so warm
And delicious to the eye!
That tropical brilliance
That is only his own,
That looks to have seared
His own wings and tail.
He has to be a fire hazard.
So he hasn’t abandoned us yet.
We’re still forgiven
Our devastating immoderation
And mostly mindless globetrotting.
But how long before—
Never mind.
Welcome him.
Oh welcome him.
Welcome him back
To his summer home.
Welcome the scarlet tanager.
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