The Lonesome Whip-poor-will

1  There was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s
2      timber
3  Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on
4      the walnuts and the hazel.
5      There was a wild pigeon.

6  There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s
7      timber.
8  Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one
9      pigeon best of all who came.
10      There was a summer.

11  It is so long ago I saw this wild pigeon and listened.
12  It is so long ago I heard the summer song of the
13      pigeon who told me why night comes, why death
14      and stars come, why the whippoorwill remembers
15      three notes only and always.
16  It is so long ago; it is like now and today; the gray
17      wing pigeon’s way of telling it all, telling it to the
18      walnuts and hazel, telling it to me.
19      So there is memory.
20      So there is a pigeon, a summer, a gray wing
21      beating my shoulder.