Listening to Cuckoos

Robert Adamson

Two unchanging notes; to us, words -- always those high

elongated notes. Red-eyed koels with feathered earmuffs,

downward-ending notes that pour through a falling of night

coming over the distances, words that don't change.

The two notes remain, a split phrase, two words

meaning, not exactly a self -- not quite, the first day of spring.

The moment of utterance, candour becomes

the piercing, whistled syllables. Penetrating the dark green

of twilight, the storm birds call, two notes, two words,

and cackle in the broken-egged dawn, in the echoing light.