Invisible Visitors
By David Budbill
All through August and September
thousands, maybe
tens of thousands, of feathered
creatures pass through
this place and I almost never see
a single one. The fall
wood warbler migration goes by here
every year, all of them,
myriad species, all looking sort of like
each other, yellow, brown, gray,
all muted versions of their summer selves,
almost indistinguishable
from each other, at least to me, although
definitely not to each other,
all flying by, mostly at night, calling to each
other as they go to keep
the flock together, saying: chip, zeet,
buzz, smack, zip, squeak—
those
sounds reassuring that we are
all here together and
heading south, all of us just passing
through, just passing
through, just passing through, just
passing through.