Birdsong Memories
John G. Young
Warbles from the trees
bring back
memories of the East,
childhood fields where
fences now divide families.
I remember birch bark boats,
rescued from whirlpools
and stagnant dead ends,
floating down inch deep streams,
past
willows whose limbs cradled my hours,
past
secret paths where we hid
among cattail cigars—
parachutes sprung from pods,
buttercup close-ups under chins liking butter,
four-leaf clovers found in foot-wide clumps. . .
tone poems of another age.