Waxwings

Yesterday afternoon the Cedar Waxwings kept calling me, but I had to stay inside because the taxes weren't finished.



Waxwings

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety--
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk--
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together--for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.

-Robert Francis

The picture is from last year. Thanks to Jenni for telling me about this poem. It says so much about waxwings that is true.