This is both a bird story (whose high pitch I heard but once) and it is a winter story.
We lie in the cold late night hours in our little cottage. The river is not far away; at the bottom of the street. The fog moves up from the river. The frost will have covered the ground by morning. We don’t get snow. We get frost. And on other days we get heavy rain.
Down on the river’s edge, sitting in the tree branches, is the bird Maori call Ruru and others simply call this sweet small guardian, ‘bird of the night’; More Pork. Because that is how he sounds.
Poignant; the sound carries away from the river and we hear it. Well, I did. Most likely you were asleep. Moorre Poork. Neither fast nor altogether slow. But on, and on, the gentle repetition; never high pitched and piercing a yelp. That would sound ominous; forewarning grief and awareness. But sometimes I think how many more winters will I lie by your side gathering solace in the melancholy sound of a dear little bird down by the river doing his night work.
It was one winter: three! The very next winter, weeks of very heavy rain, and I lie alone in the late night hoping to hear the More Pork. You had gone to the rest home. And as it rained and rained you passed away.
night sounds …
was it time to go
after the rain
Benita H. Kape (c) 1.2.2022
It is Haibun Monday in d’Verse https://dversepoets.com/2022/01/31/haibun-monday-1-31-22-winter/ and time to write a winter poem.
benitakape 