At the End of the Day

The Children continue playing in the expanding yard,
Dusk does not inhibit them nor dark,
Just around the corner. Their flight calls echo
Back at the flooded pools, their reflections
Of stars just peeking out of the universe,
Fireflies bumping their lamps against one another.

It is so wet in June, a tern came, far, far from home;
The children knew nothing,

But continued their game, unaware of the lost bird,
Its efforts at reorienting,

And in a report I read, there was one dead ovenbird
Under the conifer, illuminated.

The children drifted in their play closer to the street,
Starting to shout, some of them fall down —
Two run to the neighbor’s house,

Because the lights confuse them.