Count

One of your first words was “bird.”

You learned to say their names:
heron, robin, finch.

We counted them:
one duck, two sparrows,

three, nine, tree full
of waxwings!

We named bird colors:
blue, yellow, red, black

green like the newly budded maple,
hummingbird’s wing,

green like the grass
where men in trucks spread “weed and feed,”

like algae that multiplies
in the cove after a wind,

the colors of the rainbow
that stain puddles after a rain.

Oh, my heart-feathered child,
keep saying their names

make an account of memories,
flash of wingbeats

against the flashpoints
of this numbered world.