
Washington’s Second Alarm Sometime around nautical dawn Blackbirds and Cardinals sing and respond before the rest of us sleeping civil servants can see. An unknown audience hearing unwritten songs While we lie back in our beds small gods fly over our neighborhoods and land wherever they like. But at exactly Six AM Delta’s New York Shuttle makes its final approach sounding like a dull tornado rolling down on the banks of the Potomac Everyone aboard has stowed tray tables in upright and locked positions with no knowledge the slumbering government workforce will tell time by their descent to runway nineteen.