Tag: Wren

The wren comes once a year to me,
in July, toward the close of day,
when heat still trembles in the trees
and all the shadows stretch away.

He chooses neither branch nor wire
but lands upon the weathered gate,
his little breast a pulse of fire,
as if a bird could carry a date.

I stand inside. I do not move.
The glass is warm beneath my hand.
He lifts his throat into the grove
and sings what I don't understand.

Last year, I wrote a lyric here
when this same wren sang into night.
Tomorrow lingered, soft and near,
inside his handful of twilight.

This year he comes. I write a poem.
He tips his head and sings once more.
I do not ask how he has known
to find the same July-lit door.

This year I keep the window closed.
The curtain stirs against my wrist.
Outside, the evening bends and folds;
the hedge turns blue beneath the mist.

The wren knows nothing of before.
He doesn't count what I have kept.
He sings beside the garden door
where last year's fallen petals slept.

Perhaps he came for no one here.
Perhaps the gate was simply near.
Perhaps a wren comes once a year.

And still I wait until he's gone
before I move or breathe again,
while dusk collects across the lawn
and one small branch remembers the wren.

—Iris Lennox