Short spring, the grass wants to turn
in the sand and shallow ground, a sunburned
tan, and the birds have turned to serious
nesting, feeding and breeding on the branch,
on the ground or on the redwood railing.
Immigrants, interlopers, the ring-neck doves
cry like babies before landing overhead.
One white female parades the rail
to her drab gray mate’s dance and croon
as we welcome evening with a glass of wine.
Flutter too quick to get a camera, they whine
together, ecstatic as coyotes across the canyon.
drycrikjournal 