Intricate clacking
that throaty call
a whistle (call it a riff)
four four five four the sublte
intervals
For now they rarely talk to us
our complacent attempts piss them off
Wheels at me—too close! —eyes me that glittering eye,
lands in another juniper and says
what we most often hear them say now.
Then practice—woodshed it
and slowly the language rises up
in the throat the tongue the lips
the message comes
with a whisper of intuition
mind loose, peripheral—
Don't think about it!—language
We heard when the land was silent
and the animals and trees and winds
all sang to us, and we understood them
and sang right back.
