I took Max out today with ears unplugged

By pods, no Band, no Dylan, Raitt or Young

To set the world a step away and keep the chug of

Mowers at bay while Max is blessing bushes,

Eying squirrels, wriggling in the grass’s shaggy rug.

*

I heard a clave sounding from the trees,

Crickets chirping allegretto time while

Other bugs beat four against the crickets’ three,

Cicadas hummed and castanets with wings

Ch-ch’d among the rumba-dancing leaves.

*

Max sniffed a trail, tail held like a baton,

Clinking tags and clicking nails adorned the

Six-legged score while birds trilled down

From limbs and wires, splashing graceful notes

Around the beats of lustrous golden songs.

[I wrote the first draft of this poem around a month ago. Originally, it was going to transition to an account of a confrontation I saw later in the walk, where, in “man bites dog” fashion, a man in a fancy BMW SUV berated a woman in a beat-up Camry for rolling through a stop sign. On reconsideration, I left things bucolic. The photo is an impressionistic capture of the woods near my house.]