This morning you are a scold
as I splash to the compost
water welling around my shoes
from last night’s rain
and no doubt the tortoiseshell cat
wrapping around my ankles
before sipping from the low
birdbath has your full attention

You’ve kin around but I’ve yet
to count them perhaps two pair
with whirligig wings those white
bands spinning between gray
pinions your fan tail flashing
like some rippling flag as you spin
into cedars poised on the very tip
swaying like a stiltwalker in the wind

We chat daily since your April arrival
and I’ve come to count on
your sitting atop the barn as
I weed or cut flowers to take inside
so many birds’ songs cadged
in your throat now trilling forth
first cardinal and robin and thrush
so that I almost see notes cascading
through the shiny leaves of the hedge
black quarters eighths open wholes

A curtain of music draping
mossy trunks to hang suspended
above the fading iris as you add
another layer so that it all becomes
some arras from a forgotten castle
stone holding every sound ever
uttered to be pried out
on an icy winter night when
the only way to see you will be
in the pulsing embers of the fire
your springtime melodies lost songs
we can’t quite conjure up but try
humming anyway cardinal robin thrush.