Robyn Detterline: 5 Checklists
The First Checklist
Humboldt Park, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, US
Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:21 AM
Protocol: Traveling
Party Size: 1
Duration: 40 minute(s)
Distance: 1.2 mile(s)
6 species total:
150 Canada Goose
8 Mallard
1 Red-tailed Hawk
10 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
2 American Crow
1 Northern Cardinal
One hundred fifty Canada geese float in my blood. They know something about the cold and constrict the vessel-ways behind their saunter at the slightest sign of bitterness.
A disease is a disease because it has no reason.
A disease with reason is no disease at all.
Blood geese are excuseless, and lazy, and thick in freeze they stubbornly stay. Then why do they shrink the arteries, an overreaction to winter, an allergy to Februariness. Where did they learn this animosity of wing.
Perhaps they wish to be a secret hawk, discovered only at the very end,
when life has already shifted to waiting.
Yet the hawk preys upon rats,
and has a red tail.
My fingers turn pearly, and my toes.
When the blood rushes back after some warming, the skin is a rustic magenta,
and sometimes
deep
juicy
purple.
It is a disgusting thing.
Drab geese, drab.
Blacks and ecrus and poop dirt.
It is possible that in the blank stare lies a more intelligent shyness.
It is possible that in my disease the geese find the vivid splashes they crave.
The day is cold and getting colder, and when the fowl tuck head under wing, do they dream dark dreams of spring.
Birds are a syndrome, and sometimes
I forget geese fly,
although they do it every day.
The Thirteenth Checklist
Backyard, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, US
Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:03 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Party Size: 1
Duration: 10 minute(s)
1 species total:
1 White-throated Sparrow
A white-throat
seeps
lonely
in a ghostly shrub
seep
and I tell her
for me she can
seep
a tag-along
with nowhere to tag
seep
tag-along tag
onto me
seep
finally freed
from the foreign flocks
seep
still confronting
in cloudy stillness
seep
whether she be
a suitable friend
seep
of the sparrow
inside her own head
seep
A lonesome
white-throat
seep
I am too sad
to leave
seep
so I’m happy
when she
leaves me
The Forty-first Checklist
Backyard, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, US
Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:38 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Party Size: 1
Duration: 12 minute(s)
7 species total:
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 European Starling
1 Dark-eyed Junco
1 White-throated Sparrow
2 Northern Cardinal
2 House Finch
11 House Sparrow
a chickadee, a junco, and a cardinal
walk into a joke
until house sparrows ruin the punchline:
all winter long all
a white-throat
winter long all winter
long all winter long
is
all
winter
long
among them
in the spring he will disappear
into a window his brain
will collide with his skull
and slowly bleed and
squeeze itself
and die
for now here’s a riddle:
I pluck dropped seeds
from the soil
and the bugs who
came up too soon
The Fifty-first Checklist
Backyard, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, US
Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:35 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Party Size: 1
Duration: 13 minute(s)
7 species total:
1 American Robin
1 European Starling
6 House Finch
1 Dark-eyed Junco
1 White-throated Sparrow
2 Northern Cardinal
14 House Sparrow
When I reach the seam of my pockets,
and the end of a rented porch,
will the sparrows splay for me
their small, germane moments,
and will I discover them
before the squirrels.
The Fifty-seventh Checklist
Backyard, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, US
Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:20 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Party Size: 1
Duration: 12 minute(s)
4 species total:
7 European Starling
4 House Finch
1 Dark-eyed Junco
12 House Sparrow
I am mindful that
the sparrows sulk in the shrub
praying for the return
of their old bread life
I am mindful that
the cardinals not here today
think kindly of change
always taking advantage
I am mindful that
the junco unjustly tethered
to non-native grass
is only one and leaving
I am mindful that
the white-throat may be
for days foraging another yard and
is dead or dead to me
I am mindful that
the finches do nothing wrong
yet still zip a weird zip
sounding an awful lot like the end
Robyn Detterline is a writer, editor, and educator. She volunteers with Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, an organization that rescues wild birds injured by window collisions. In an effort to manage anxiety and depression, she participated in a checklist-a-day challenge, in which she made daily observations of birds for one year, writing a poem for each checklist.