Birdsong – a poem by Ed Meek

Birdsong

The way their song lifts your spirits
in the spring when a convocation
of birds returns to meadows 
and fields they favor, trees
they seem to know. Although
it’s hard to find them by sound alone,
surveying as you go
trying to echolocate
the cheeps and chirps, tweets
and whistles, clicks 
and squawks,
the piercing cries of hawks,
guttural caw of crows.
You search for splashes of color:
cardinal red, oriole orange,
goldfinch yellow, hiding 
in the camouflage of leaves.

Ed Meek is the author of four books of poetry and a collection of short stories. His most recent book is High tide. He has had poems in The Paris Review, The Sun, Plume, etc.