Sun Compass
The summer tanager
moves to the top of the pine,
red clear in the blur
of needles against clouds.
It isn’t high to him, having flown higher
to get here from another continent.
It isn’t just any pine.
Who would think
all pines alike?
The top of this one is the one in first light,
darker than celadon,
and he has chosen it
as he chooses his words carefully.
He calls in an old tongue,
not in one lost as the language
that gave him his name,
not oblivion.
moves to the top of the pine,
red clear in the blur
of needles against clouds.
It isn’t high to him, having flown higher
to get here from another continent.
It isn’t just any pine.
Who would think
all pines alike?
The top of this one is the one in first light,
darker than celadon,
and he has chosen it
as he chooses his words carefully.
He calls in an old tongue,
not in one lost as the language
that gave him his name,
not oblivion.
Angie Macri is the author of Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize. Her recent work appears in Salamander and Sugar House Review. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs and teaches at Hendrix College.
Art: Anniversary, oil on paper, Paulina Swietliczko
