The Yellow-Rump Warbler

They (the bird authorities) used to call it “The Myrtle Warbler,”

But as time passed and as things changed and aged,

They decreed that it should be named for the bright yellow patch

Sported on its rump. 

So,  yesterday I saw a yellow-rump warbler –

I in my car and warbler in the road==

Carelessly picking up some object from the gravel--

I thought of the warbler

Whose song I have never heard, and

In my mind I brought forth the memories still living there

Of the wild field of underbrush behind out lot

Before the house was built, and

How there were wax myrtle bushes, and

How there were myrtle warblers.

So when, yesterday, I held the warbler

Securely in my mind,

I took great pleasure in seeing it again,

--March 9, 2013