The Morning After
Greg Watson
Birdsong everywhere today,
yet not a bird in sight.
Even the air seems somewhat
startled, this gray and motionless air
clouded with the residue of
last night’s fires, the haze of toxins
and teargas obstructing the day
like a dirty window screen;
a day weighted with the absence
of those taken, silenced.
We are not yet done breaking each
other’s hearts. Not quite.
But the birds go on singing
just the same, singing for the sake
of the song, as though the world
would end without it.
About Greg Watson
Greg Watson is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently All the World at Once: New and Selected Poems. He is also co-editor with Richard Broderick of the anthology The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood, published by Nodin Press.