Wind Chimes

Wind Chimes

The chickens carried on

with what they knew to do, huddled

in the harbor of the henhouse

as the sky winged into a hawk's eye,

circling. Wood chips took flight

from the mulch pile

to speckle the siding, a loose

shingle lifting like sickle

feathers as a feed bag scraped

across the field with the neighbor,

out to bolt lock the shed door. It is,

as they so often say, the way of it

here: little reason to believe

the storm will clear or alter

course, littler reason still

not to take that cold, leftover length

of pipe and do what little

we might to set it ringing till light

drips gentle as sparrow-song,

soothing these guttered fields.