Heavy the waxwings hang upon the bough,
A gospel dozen, sharing summer fruits,
The pyrocanthus touched with winter snow,
Alive with yellow-banded crested suits.
There is no solitary prophet here,
Spying the setting, ranking lesser wings;
They come in droves, in droves they disappear,
Unlike the dove, alone no waxwing sings.
Of course the birds are metaphor to me,
The waxing congregation sharing all;
The dove, I think, practices poetry,
Solitary, an “individual.”
Is it perverse to sing a lonely song,
When love prescribes the place where we belong?