Their scarlet epaulets give them rank
and they mean to make the most of it.
Wings tilted back, head forward
like a sergeant barking orders,
they vilify intruders
from the safety of their high branch perch.
 
Despite their satin beauty,
those are threats.
And for all their clerical black,
no doubt, in that hectoring trill,
there's an avian cuss or two.
 
Day after day,
in their scrub realm,
the male circles his territory,
or grips a waving reed,
defies his own weight
as he sways back and forth,
charting his thick green demesne,
while the female,
more reticent, less public,
scouts out nest sites in the underbrush.
 
There's one on the feeder now,
haughty and kingly,
waving away the other birds
so it can stand alone.
 
It’s an imperious bird.
If it were human,
it would have a hand
in writing this.


© by John Grey.
Used with the author’s permission.