Nocturne in B-Flat
Barbra Nightingale
--for Carol
Evening moves into night, moves
into morning, quietly at first
slow arpeggio, then a crescendo
that shatters your sleep.
Before dawn, it was the crickets,
then one bird or another—
soon a whole chorus
fluttered with noisy mufflers and horns.
You’re grateful for the shade
of the mango tree, now home
to woodpeckers and squirrels
wakened at sunrise, as finally
you drift into dream, never
knowing whose feet patter the roof,
who’s drumming in your yard,
or if the thud you hear is fruit or heart.
Barbra Nightingale’s 10th book of poetry is Spells & Other Ways of Flying (Kelsay Books, 2021). She has seven chapbooks and three full volumes of poetry with small presses. Over 200 of her poems have appeared in National and International Journals and Anthologies such as Rattle, Narrative Magazine, Kansas Quarterly, Witchery, Florida Review and Kalliope. She is an Associate Editor with the South Florida Poetry Journal, a semi-retired professor, and lives in Hollywood, Florida, with her two and four-legged menagerie.