A Night in Chicago
Forced to fly lower by unexpected rains
a thousand songbirds passing over the lake
near McCormick Place slap lit windowpanes—
and fall in yellow heaps across the lawn.
In Muncie, Indiana, no one at dawn
hears swelling choruses in the sycamores,
and later, in Louisville, garage doors
open but no birds put on a show
whistling seebit, seebit, or whywhywhy
and hunters in Tennessee, hearing only crows,
stick in their earbuds for the morning lies.
Alabama commuters glimpse no feathers
brightening the woods in the grey weather.
Down at the Texas border no cheerful zreee
encourages the migrants sleeping in tents
or wakes a child to point up with glee,
and the palms in Mexico do not shake and sway
with warblers in their fronds resting a day
for the flight to Guatemala, the final swing
of the songbird migration to their winter place
where Monarch butterflies clap their wings
calling for music in that silent space.
Copyright © 2025 by Maura Stanton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 3, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“One morning in October 2023 I was shocked to learn that a thousand migrating songbirds had died in a single night by flying into the large windows of McCormick Place [Lakeside Center] in Chicago. Later, when I sat down to write, I began to think about all the different people who would never hear their songs. The windows have since been covered with a special film to help prevent collisions.”
—Maura Stanton
Maura Stanton
