tsarina

Eamon Grennan

Little Dirge in the Month of the Dead

The nuthatch, the bluebird, both drenched

in an empty ash tree: one corkscrews the

trunk upside down, hunting food while the

other perches a bare branch to sing or

murmur against the weather a few clean

discreet notes, a ditty I catch in passing, a

quick improv riff, alert to the coming

season that’s nothing to sing about but still

something, some small, not quite unheard

melody for the dead whose month this is —

including your friend whose voice has been

caught in the beak the nuthatch pries inside

any small crack in ash bark, seeking the

merest morsel to feed its hunger, while the

wet-winged bluebird turns to the bleak

breadth of air and just keeps singing.