TheBanyanTree: brown creeper

[Tom Smith]

Splendid poem, Mike, a delightful experience.  I particularly 
liked the ending, which seemed to relate directly to my own
life.

I wish this wonderful bird would get established in my neck
of the woods.   Locally there has been a lot of devastation
to trees by a pine bark beetle, and the Brown Creeper sounds
like a perfect solution.

These winged foragers are amazing climbers.  There is a 
fantastic shot of one at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75027500@N08/6866666433/   

     brown creeper

your thin, reedy whistle 
is so often drowned, 
but this dim early hour the town lies 
dreaming, the crows still sleeping. 
 
I hope to catch you in silhouette 
if I am to catch you at all, 
the trees black fractals against 
a wall of tarnished clouds. 
 
six-legged are summer?s children 
and summer has foundered in the 
sea of fallen leaves, but you know 
where hides the thrips and midges, 
 
the barley worm, the beetles in their 
bark crevices.  cloaked in the black 
you are ratcheting up the maple 
like a clock-work toy, a steeplejack 
 
on a hidden string.  hop then pause, 
tail propped, probing cracks and holes 
with your broom-straw beak, the 
source of your thin, reedy whistle. 
 
you weigh little more than moonlight; 
the ground?s faint pull makes the tree 
a mere rough road.  where the trunk 
tapers you flutter-fall to earth, 
 
lift your head and start upward anew. 
this is your own hard way 
and your bird heart hammers; 
it is said just one thin spider 
 
earns you muscle and gristle enough 
to master another ascent. 
I whistle for my dogs, we three have 
our own dark trees to transit.