The Mystery

This morning
I read a poem
about the chat —
a bird I didn’t know was a bird

oh, Lord,
what a lesson
you send me
as I stand

listening
to your rattling, swamp-loving chat
singing
of his simple, leafy life —

how I would like to sing to you
all night
in the dark
just like that

I knelt
on Ramadan knees
that wobbled
for the song

of the mystery chat
to be found in me,
as I opened my windows
and sat at my desk —

the chipmunks are soap boxing
the spotted pigeons are purring,
and a mystery bird
with two white stripes

circles,
brushing the wide-mouthed crow —
was it an accident?
the hunched crow asks,

before continuing his mischief
until the small stripes
swing again, and then again
past the point of doubt.

What is this four-inch mystery —
play or protection,
a tickle or a strike,
a song or a cry?

I check the field guide:
white stripes trickle
down the back of
the Indian pied bush

chat.
My knees wobble
like the bird is something else —
our chat with the world,

the song inside each of us,
learning to see the God
inside of all things —
even the mysteries we read

whose names
we’ve never known,
and the ones circling around
that we can’t quite name.