Bird Taxi

Bird Taxi
Bird Taxi Mystery
Bird Taxi Purr
Bird Taxi Times
Bird Taxi Boy
Bird Taxi Rain
Bird Taxi Bicycle
Bird Taxi East
Bird Taxi Me
Bird Taxi Belief

Bird Taxi

At 4 AM I heard the birds at the end of the street.
Almost an hour later, a robin started in our yard,
then I heard a car motor arrive and stop at the curb.
I was too tired to get up and look out the window,
so I let myself see it another way. I pictured
the yellow shiny door of a checkered cab open.
With the sound of pouring water, all those birds
from down the street flew out and found places
in our tree. A new day was beginning,
they were making the rounds, singing
their hearts out. So thick you could walk
on the sound, or float on it, let your mattress
drift like a raft if it wasn’t 6 o’clock and
time to get up.




Bird Taxi Mystery

It’s like finding out a magic trick is no more
than wires and mirrors. The bird orchestra
was in full swing as the taxi noise eased in.
I heard the door open and this time the wet
slap of something hitting cement. The door
closed and the car rolled on. Of course,
I knew what it was, I recalled seeing this
happen before. The taxi was a blue car
driven by a man who carried his family
inside. When he stopped, his oldest son,
maybe seven years old, would get out
and drop a newspaper in the driveway.
That’s why the car was there early mornings.
The birds arrived by air as usual, but now
there was a bigger mystery. Who were they?
Why were they driving, delivering newspapers
together as a family? How did it happen
and what is the fate of that family?




Bird Taxi Purr

The robin still started up at 4 AM,
I woke moments before and listened
and waited. A few more birds joined in,
the way musicians do, meeting each other
out of the blue. Exactly 21 minutes later
I heard the Bird Taxi. Its engine purred
and it rubbed up to the curb as I fell
asleep again.




Bird Taxi Boy

One of these mornings, maybe tomorrow,
we’ll see, I’ll be able to lean out of bed
to push that green curtain aside. Usually
I’m so tired when I hear that car, I can’t
move. Next time will be different though.
Yes, I will see it there, with family inside,
and the boy will leap out. Because it’s
so early, the mind is thick and cloudy,
the door to dreamland is wavering open.
I will watch him move up the driveway
only his feet don’t touch the gravel, he is
hovering, flying actually. He drops a
newspaper near our house then he spins
and floats back to the waiting car.
The engine will carry them away.
I will let go of the curtain and it
will cover the window once more
and when I wake at a minute to six,
will I even remember to wonder?




Bird Taxi Times

The paper is thin and crackles at
the touch. It is covered with little
scratched marks. Somehow I know
it’s a musical score, this is what
gets delivered early each day.
So the birds can read directions,
I fold it open, leave it on the fence.




Bird Taxi Rain

On a raining morning things like waking
are forgotten. The birds hide in leaves
tight to trees and eaves and there’s no
sound at 4 AM. The alarm clicks on
at 6 AM, a muffled song that could be
anything.




Bird Taxi Bicycle

Because we’re having trouble with our car,
thirty years of roads and sometimes it won’t go,
I hope they’re not in the same boat. If their car
broke down, someone would have to deliver
by bicycle, carrying the papers in bird cages
slung like lanterns roped to the frame.
Would I even hear it? Only the rusted
pull of chain, pedal and creak as it went by.




Bird Taxi East

And when it passes our house, where does
it go next? The dawn isn’t done, it rattles
down to the shore and the bicycle wheels
churn it west across the sea. It rises on
the east coast of Japan, and with the new
sunlight again finds a house like ours,
wakens with birds and different words.




Bird Taxi Me

That could be, it’s possible there is more than
one me hearing birds this way. After Japan,
across more water to China, India, climbing
Himalayas with the sun it goes. Sometimes a car,
sometimes as a bike, whatever form it takes,
moving around the world, returning in a circle
each morning to me.




Bird Taxi Belief

This spring I noticed the birds that wake us
arrive by taxi cab. It happens at dawn like an
ordinary newspaper delivery. I have never seen it.
Only because of my first impression do I keep
calling it a taxi, and only because I rely on a
dreamy sleepiness truth do I believe what I do.




writing: allen frost in june 2009