Whip-poor-will
 
 

If it were morning, I’d swear this bugle call was reveille
blown by Woody Woodpecker or someone with his energy.
But it’s night, not day-o, and the dark rolls with whiterwayos
that make sleep impossible. John Burroughs
counted 1,000 repeats with a rarely perceptible
pause that he guessed was for breath. Antic,
but not erratic, steady as a metronome’s tick,
tick. With the accent on the wee, whip-poor-will
became whit-er-a-wee to Aretas Saunders’ unerring ear.
Hoping to hear one, he walked from the Lake Clear
Inn to Upper St. Regis and back again one summer night,
1925, while my grandparents and baby father slept nearby.
Threnody is another projection this song can invite.
The dead are close and those I couldn’t bear to have die.
 

Charles Weld

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Charles Weld would be pleased to hear them.