BLACKBIRDS

Like fighter jets after hawks,
they nose dive the dog,
attack from redwood boughs
to protect a fledgling
too soon on the ground.

A community, a murder, a grind,
a merle or murmuration
of blackbirds has moved-in,
displaced the finches’
crimson dance upon the rail

with cocky walks and orgies
of foreplay and flittering sex
anywhere they please—but ready
to herd a rattlesnake
out of the garden and barnyard.