TIMETABLE FOR BIRDS

Days I’ve spent brooding over this timetable—

a schedule for birds I can’t identify

in Kansas City, a place I’ve never been.

According to it, a cedar waxwing’s routine

is irregular, but a catbird can be clocked:

arrival 4:30, departure 9:25 (date unspecified).

Where the birds come from—where the birds go—

vagaries of wind—velocity—fate—how much

food (sleep) they need—are matters the timetable

doesn’t address. Even what’s relatively simple,

like who choreographs the interplay

of multiple flight paths across the sky,

or how twenty-three species all due to land

at 5:01 coordinate their simultaneous descents,

is beyond its scope. (What can’t be answered

often goes untouched.) A few of the sightings—

of cardinal, kingbird, red-headed woodpecker,

chimney swift, goldfinch, meadowlark—

are confirmed by someone’s light pencil mark.

Five out of six catalogued owls—great horned,

long-eared, barred, barn, and screech—

are residents who never leave. The short-eared owl

arrives at 10:10 (am? pm?), departs at 3:15.

The least bittern, the short-billed marsh wren

arrive together (4:10) and stay the summer,

while the lapland longspur and arctic towhee

winter over. Some birds—the shoveler,

the blue-winged teal—were seen leaving

but no one knows what time they came;

others, like the coot, duly checked in

(2:30) but managed to lift off undetected.

And you? Will your arrival, your crowning,

be clocked? A penciled note, a bracelet

of red thread twining your fledgling wrist?