Les Adieux

by Jo Ann Baldinger

The wild hens of Kauai cannot carry a tune
or even make a lovely sound. Yet this one
has climbed the wooden steps to the porch
not in search of crumbs (the roosters got them all)

but, it seems, to listen to Arrau’s recording
of the Beethoven sonatas. It’s “Les Adieux”
that really floors her, those first aching notes:
Farewell, the piano sings,

and she’s riveted, motionless, her chicks
tucked beneath her plump and speckled breast --
one fat bird on 14 scrawny legs. Only her head turns,
aiming one invisible ear and then the other

toward the tinny speaker. I think of my father
who couldn’t sing on key but knew how to listen
who set the sparrows hopping on their wires
when he whistled back to them.