And Your Bird Can Screech (Blue Jay Way)

Son Rivers continues his work on bird songs. Noting that this time of year the music tends to disappear and nest somewheres in the woods, take a moment to listen to our foreshortened spring.

Blue Jays

Like slight aristocrats
the blue jays gather in
my yard, their speech sounding so

dramatic. One jay recites
its quantum soliloquy
as other jays go probing

for some groundless need:
“Now is the summer of
our suffrage when despotic

days elect which weeds
to elevate. We stray,
saluting melon wilds

of lime-green lawns and stands
of dandelions. But when
our trespasses have called

to arms an oak, inviting
worms to lift its acorn
crown towards thunderstorms

and stars, we’ll draw our colors
over continental
sidewalk sales and pray

there’s nothing on that hill
to nail the spider web
but flights of blue belief.

I’ll screech in trade my life
treads water while true skies
loom larger than some leaf.”

~Son Rivers 2005

Ah, but June comes now with a vengeance.