Call of the Wild

The early spring peepers

insisted on their portion

of silence this evening,

and filled it fully with

their shrill mantra, they

drowned out all birds,

both dogs, and the hen

late to cackle the arrival

of her egg. Peter and I

heard something strange

as we walked by a bend

in the creek and stopped

to look for a gaggle

of turkeys. We descended

the ravine to the creek

in a classic pincer, him

to the west, me to east,

and the crazy rumble

of song did not desist

until we were practically

on top of it. Not turkeys.

not anything. No ripple

in the stagnant water,

no rustle in the leaves.

Was it such a pure song

meant for no one? Or

did our approach sound

like the right kind of love

for a prince well hidden

in the dank, earthen thaw?

I can remember my spring

and the heartbreak to have

such a declaration foiled,

and to take up hiding again.

We crawled up the opposite

side, identified some edibles,

and looked for brookies

under the cutbank mosses.

I got a lesson in the paired

branching of twigs in the new

growth of hickory trees.

Peter is a botanist for the State.

The peepers started up again

when we were not too far gone.

But the more crazed gloat

from the creek that confused

us both I did not hear again

until my wife and I went out

to have dinner on the deck.