I don’t know why, but the singing of birds

in winter always takes me

quite by surprise.

Not so much the noisy prattle, although wonderful,

of migratory northern geese pushing southward,

but the small throated songbirds that stay

for abbreviated cold winter days.

Trillers in lyrical bel canto

compelling me, quite in the middle of anything,

out my front door to listen.

Shivering from bare limbs,

swaying and fluttering in bleak wind when gray

can be wrung from everything—

even me.

 

Long after earth has gone underground for

her Sabbath rest,

a polyphonic coloratura sings,

ecstatic light emitting from delicate vocal chords.

 

These little warblers in joy-filled descant,

sing in psalms and praises to no one

in particular listening—

but me.