A month ago, the music of the birds
was serenade from dawn to nearly noon.
Today to put the garden sound in words,
I hear the insect buzz and squirrel zoom.
The bees are drinking salvia and flies
are bumping window glass. The whine
of a mosquito makes me slap my eyes
and box my ears. The most disruptive sign
of spring is squirrels in the eucalypt.
A half a dozen spiral up the trunk
and down again, dislodging branches tipped
with twigs to clatter on the deck. They bunk
above, they piss from high in darting hurry,
and earn their term of venery: a scurry.