POETRY

Whippoorwills at Night

By David Baker     VOLUME 59 No. 2

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His way of saying where are you—
Nightjars along the little river. The woods so deep—

So many stars. His whistle was their song—
Through the night the tent       saying where are you—



. . .



I’d go in the direction of the birds—
That sounded like him. Whippoorwill the way

He whistled       and they sang through willows—
So many. Moths by the lamplight, and gnats—



. . .



The night       a feast for the birds—
I know them by their other name       Antrostomus

Vociferus. So few       in the river woods standing—
So far in recession as we say—when it’s us—



. . .



Who’ve eaten them away. Into exurbs—
Company farms       where the river oaks the little

Streams       so many stars we no longer see—
I’d go downstream he’d go up. Running bank lines—



. . .



Checking limbs how they quiver       a fish on a hook—
Some nights he carried me back, too tired—

To walk, under stars under dove-
Call       I hear the echo of the river stones, father—



. . .



Tent flames, low limbs—where have you gone.
Nightjars along the little river. No more—

I would hear you, please whistle—
Who was will       what did the poor boy do—

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DAVID BAKER’s poetry collections include Transit (2026), Whale Fall (2022), and Swift: New and Selected Poems (2019); his Never-Ending Birds was awarded the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize in 2011. Among his prose volumes are Show Me Your Environment (2014) and Radiant Lyre: Essays on Lyric Poetry (2007). Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly, which he co-edited with Michael Collier, appeared in 2025. Baker’s work appears widely and was recently included in the landmark anthology A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925–2025. He served for many years as poetry editor of The Kenyon Review and lives in Granville, OH, and Hudson, NY.


VOLUME 59 No. 2