Did you hear it?

“Did you hear it?” asked the ranger
tilting his head slightly to one side
and leaning on his rake.
“There it is again! Did you hear it?”

I listened, standing there
amid the green woods,
and the newly scythed grass.
But my untutored ear
could not one song distinguish
from another.

He pursed his lips
and, blowing gently,
produced as sweet a birdsong
as I had ever heard -
gentle, lyrical, liquid
it floated on the air.

And then I heard it,
from somewhere high in a nearby tree,
the same melodic trill.

“That’s a nuthatch!” he said, smiling.

And I was filled with admiration for this man
and envied him his kinship with nature.

© David L. Axton 2006