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by Wallace Kaufman |
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Where this time?
The pair makes several tries -
my hard hat, a can of nails, window ledge,
all filled with leaves.
How do they judge
those inferior, this one prime?
It's predetermined,
I don't know how.
So too their songs -
he two-notes or three-notes,
and she chirrrs along.
Same songs, same positions,
morning in and morning out
I wake to their repetition.
If they watch me, no doubt
they'd see my own routines,
but neither they nor I can find
what isn't wired in my genes.
Why does this human mind
hear "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro"
in his operatic voice?
Or is it "video, video, video"?
It's his song, but my choice.
Wallace Kaufman is a former science writing fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole and author of the new memoir Coming Out of the Woods: The Solitary Life of a Maverick Naturalist.
Cary Barnhard grew up in New Jersey, where his senior class voted him "most unique." He maintains that honor is a polite way of being voted "most likely to need therapy." After a few misadventures in the music industry, he started pretending to be a graphic artist. Eventually it became the truth.


Sunflower
Jonah Remembers the Whale
The World Below the Brine
Pilling the Man
Late Autumn Night in Iowa
Winter Uplands