Just Birds at Dawn

BIRDS AT DAWN

Moved by the music of first morning light,
The faint arpeggios of dawn upon
the amphitheatre of the eastern hills,
a multitude of feathered throats catch song
and so proclaim their empires of day.

Even a roost of mournful crows admits
a melancholy contrabass to fit
the tiny bells of flitting finches, floating
from tall and seeded grasses. Magpies weave
a melting middle range from singing trees.
For brass there rises brief but brilliant bursts
of cachinnation from far kookaburras. . .
and now, to seal the symphony of light,
a butcher bird upon a wire adds
his fluting, free, and flowing, single line:
the silver melody of morning shine.

The polyphonic day's begun. The sun
returns as dominant. Air's minstrels,
the sylphs of dawn song, scatter wide, resume
soft, leafy chamber works or solo tunes.