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Unknown Birds in Unknown Trees
by Peter Cashwell

"Northern Cardinal... Habitat: Woodland edges, thickets, suburban gardens,
towns."
--Roger Tory Peterson

Where cardinals chase with cardinals, mild and free,
you do not hunt, uncertain, nor do you
see unknown birds in unknown trees.

We walk soft pathways, moist with bark and scree,
familiar with the tread of city shoe,
where cardinals chase with cardinals, mild and free.

Here fatted sparrows rustle dustily
and traffic hums beyond the pond--none do
see unknown birds in unknown trees.

No blood-beaked hawk is shrieking in the breeze,
no toucan, no hibiscus here to view
where cardinals chase with cardinals, mild and free.

Here jaws are safe, undropped, though not unpleased;
but elsewhere, eyes, instead of tame red hues,
see unknown birds in unknown trees.

The world is wide, and this is, I'd agree,
a godsend to the concrete-born. But few,
where cardinals chase with cardinals, mild and free,
see unknown birds in unknown trees.



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