The Creator Praises Birds

Vent and crissum, lores and crest and comb: I made them all—the nares, nape, those horny bill plates—I in feathered trochees made them: peacock, sparrow, tufted titmouse, flitting jenny filled with joy of beaking worm, of strut and glide, of piping double on their syrinx. Praise how flock and murmuration call out warning, call to fly or roost or call for pleasure: See me! Hear me! Pur-ty! Pur-ty! Pur-ty! Cheer up! Pibbity!

Praise the brave-heart tender fledgling, wobbly winging over houses, over pavement, risking all to climb the air by beating wind I too created, rising heavenward in joy.