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Ancient Lilt
How common the robin,
its lilt and breast, red
by name since that
juicy globe the orange
did not reach England
until quite late, its color
usage appearing as a daub
on the painter’s palette
in the 1500s while its
Pleistocene syrinx,
an ugly twist of a word,
remains unchanged down
through the millennia, its
sweet tadah still timing
the measure of our
troubled days.
--Roger Pfingston
Roger Pfingston is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards. His poems have appeared in a wide range of publications, including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, I-70 Review, and Cloudbank. He has held residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Ragdale. In recent years, he has received numerous nominations for the Pushcart Prize. His latest chapbook, What’s Given, is available from Kattywompus Press.