David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Birdsong (poem)

        Nearly one-third of the wild birds in the United States and Canada have vanished since 1970.
                                                Fitzpatrick & Marra, The New York Times, 9/19/2019

I awaken to ghost birds,
my ears ringing with dawn choruses past—
robins, finches, warblers, thrushes, and wrens
erupting in melodies so loud and full I could not think,
my mind carried on a freshet of sound.

This morning is no silent spring,
but a season muffled, slowly choked of breath,
a boisterous choir fading to an ensemble
of sweet chirps and whistles,
not the wall of sound I heard as a boy.

Connecting earth, air and water,
wings and hollow bones morph to totems, portents.
Is there freedom or courage without eagles,
mystery absent owls peering into darkness,
peace and healing minus the grace of cranes?

I need no homing pigeons
when hushed birdsong augurs anxiety and awe,
messages me on the planet’s health.
Must every feathered thing be a canary,
every backyard, street corner and hilltop a coal mine?

In Praise of Cobbles

Stone cobbles are the most elemental of construction materials. No two structures built of them are exactly the same. Endlessly fascinating for their unique appearance, I’m on the lookout wherever I go, and often stop and stare at homes and public buildings, foundations, streets, commemorative arches and monuments, even porch railings and flower planters.

Cobbles are smooth, naturally rounded rocks not much bigger than what most people can easily carry. Webster defines them as “larger than a pebble and smaller than a boulder often arbitrarily limited by geologists to a size ranging from 64 to 256 millimeters in diameter,” about two-and-a-half to ten inches. They were ground down, polished, and then dropped by the glacier that retreated from my area in southern New England about 12,000 years ago. Today, they are most easily found in streambeds and along lake and sea shores, exposed by the erosive power of water. They also arise from tilled fields by frost action, appearing like fossilized potatoes.