“Town Crier of the Night”

The return of the mourning doves made me think of this poem. I am soothed by their sad mummers and close my eyes to their music.

 

The Horned Moon shows her pale face

In a lavender-velvet sky.

Beneath critters begin to still,

Find nest or burrow

And settle for the night.

–

Swallows make sickle-sweeps–

Black crescents

Challenging the moon–

Disappearing into gathering gloom.

–

Crickets still their bows,

Raucous fiddles laid aside

With only a section

Of orchestra still fiddlin’ in the dark.

–

Cows mournfully call

To the cow herder—

Full udders,

A day’s labor done,

Now return to the straw

And the peace of the stall.

–

Bull frogs play bass to crickets
But even they, eyes reflecting
The moon above,
Shift into frog-lullaby
And sing the fish to sleep.

–

The brook has less babble,

The wind dies away-

The hoot of a Great Horned Owl

Is the town crier tonight.

–
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018

 

 

Tags: "The Horned Moon", painting of Owl by author, the mourning doves sing sweetly, Town Crier