Nightjar

You can hear them,

like little ghosts

haunting the air at night,

though we don’t have

the blue note whippoorwill

in our evergreens.

If you’ve ever hummed a dry, lonesome aria

from your own warbling wind struck throat

you can hear them—

in the hollowed out whisper-choke,

strummed endless in black on wet pillowed nights,

haunted and hidden.

Yes, you can hear them, even here,

always, when you’ve known lonely,

so ink-dark and bled deep to bone.

Or maybe they can hear you.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

At dVerse host Tony Maude has invited us to write to any FFA or MTB prompt they’ve offered in the past.  I chose Victoria Slotto's Literary Allusion.  One of my all time favorite short stories is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.  I also love the haunting song Midnight in Montgomery by Alan Jackson.  Each work references the beautifully eerie call of the nightjar bird, the Eastern Whip-poor-will.  I have alluded to each work in my piece.  Happy year 3 dVerse!