Cardinal Land

// Miriam Bassuk

How to quantify what you miss after a move
to another part of the country, the sad longing
that appears on your face as you gaze into the distance.

It’s the little things, like lightening bugs,
and the Northern Cardinal with his fiery red
coat that get you. His flash in the woods,

impossible to miss, the sound of his trilling,
a sharp high-pitched whistle followed by rapid-fire
sounds of too, too, too, still singing in the dead

of winter. You don’t miss the frigid weather.
You miss the people, the familiar twang
of their voices; you miss belonging.