Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem here in the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by a living poet, Scott Cairns, who is currently head of the MFA program

in creative writing at Seattle Pacific University.

His books of poetry include collections like Theology of Doubt, the Translation of Babel,

the Philocalia, Idiot Psalms, and Slow Pilgrim, The Collected Poems. He has written for many,

many journals, such as the Paris Review and New Republic and Poetry, and he has been anthologized

in Best Spiritual Writing and Best American Spiritual Writing.

Dr. Kennes has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities,

and he was awarded the Denise Levertov Award in 2014.

Today's poem is called Early Frost.

This morning, the world's white face reminds us that life intends to become serious again. And the same loud birds that all summer long annoyed us with their high

attitudes and chatter, silently line the gibbet of the fence, a little stunned, chastened enough.

They look as if they're waiting for things

to grow worse, but are watching the house, as if somewhere in their dim memories, they recall something

about this abandoned garden that could save them. The neighbor's dog has also learned to wake,

without exaggeration, and the neighbor himself has made it to his car with less noise,

starting the small engine with a kind of reverence. At the window, his wife witnesses this bleak

tableau, blinking her eyes, silent. I fill the feeders to the top and cart them to the tree,

hurrying back inside to leave the

morning to these ridiculous birds who reminded find the rough shelters, bow, and then feed.

This poem, Early Frost, is from a collection called the Translation of Babel, which was from 1990,

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