Northern Mockingbird: A Poem For Bono—By PJ

Talking With Another, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2023. Based on a screencap from from Bono and The Edge: A Sort Of Homecoming With Dave Letterman. And a bird.

Northern Mockingbird: A Poem For Bono

PJ DeGenaro

Northern Mockingbird

Under the full moon of early May, 

That is also called the Flower Moon,

The Milk Moon, and the Mother’s Moon,

The northern male mockingbird

May sing throughout the day

And long into the night.

He is named mimus polyglottos,

The mimic of many tongues.

A master of two hundred songs,

He is known to reproduce the sounds 

Of car alarms and mobile phones,

Rusty gates and barking dogs,

The mating calls of frogs and toads, 

And cats that prowl suburban lawns.

Of the songs that belong to him alone, 

There are only three, and they are called:

Loud hews, soft hews, and chat calls.

I believe that if I can be still,

If I maintain a certain distance

From his favorite tree 

(Hackberry, celtis occidentals)

He may turn his head to regard me 

With one bright, incisive eye,

And allow me to admire his beak.

But a step too close and he is gone

In a beating of brown wings, 

A flash of soft white throat.

He leaves no feathers for my bed,

But returns to scold at my window,

Singing madly the old Nokia ringtone

Till I dream of songs as dense as bricks.