Cacophany

The grackles came this spring.
Teeming beaks and patience,
they crowed a soffit slat,
colonized the attic,
filled the lofty silence
with a colloquy of wings.

Pandemonium.
Rats the size of dogs
in a slick imitation
of birdy pursuits and evasions,
quietless dialogues
of epithalamium.

In the night of the second day
they found the autoharp’s
forgotten hiding place,
unhinged the mildewed case,
mixed their flats and sharps
as the dampers fell away.

It’s a constant concert now.
The virtuosi queue
to charm the company,
feathering delicately
the strings above new,
crooing tremolos,

and for their artistry
receive a racket of spikes
pulled from rusty beams,
chalk on slate, scream
of worn out brakes.
Enough, apparently.

A sulphur candle sends
them somewhere else to let
their psittacosis fall.
Now we listen at the walls,
probe this novel quiet
that sings as it descends.