Morning Chorus
Poetry
Dear calico she does her daily mee-yowll,
a post-breakfast roaring lioness, beagle
grunts & groans in doggy joy of back roll
& squirm, sparrows & roosters, doves &
orioles enchant this first coffee with chirps & crows, coos & cries, while I, tapping out
these words on my phone, vowels rolling over tongue, all such music not only for ourselves,
for the ecstasy of stretch, but also some sacred task, heralding one to another: We Are Here!
Born in the U.K., Ann van Wijgerden has spent most of her life in the Netherlands and the Philippines. She has had nonfiction, poetry and fiction published in a number of magazines, including Spadina Literary Review, Genre: Urban Arts, Orbis, Rue Scribe, The Sunlight Press, Yellow Arrow Vignette and Last Stanza Poetry Journal. Ann works with an NGO providing education for children living in Manila’s slum area of ‘Smokey Mountain’. www.youngfocus.org