See the clever mockingbird

sitting with a boat-tail

on the abandoned telephone wire?

Close but not too close, facing

the same direction, the same sunset.

 

A pair of house finches

cleaning each other’s beaks.

What a display of body-sharing!

I set down the spyglass.

 

Mergansers flying in a morning circle,

light and easy on the wing, on the eye.

They manipulate the cold current to keep

their intimate and precise distances.

 

Red-wings sit along the wire

like clef-notes, rising, settling, rising again.

Ibises shuttle for space in the rookery,

an exact spot to face the last light.

 

We watch the colors unfold like a sheet:

Purple, then pink, now blue, now rose, and gone.

2 thoughts on “Eyes on the Marsh

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