April Blue Jay

A Blue Jay sits while it drums and echoes

Across a still meadow

Light straining on yellow wheat and foot- tracked mud

Where they hung the church that invented work

Handouts grew on bushes

Looking at the stars

Stoking the fire

Walks and talks on a cliff above the sea

Above lost rocks

A gentle humming

A still across the meadow

A gleaming bell surging through all

While you sit and the dog comes back soaked, tongue out

Smiling and shaking

So you smile back at it then smile at your friend

And the look of rapture lights the cliffs the sea and pine of the trees