Singers & Poets: Today's minstrels 

Winter Wren

By Autumn J. Laird

***

Bird singing in snow laden night

In my winter slumber

Wren calling me to venture the maze

To build the bridges of stone

Water rushing under way

Deep tides pulling the air into the eternal spiral

Where I dare not fall

With each able song I must answer

Call the voice of the sunset with perfect pitch

Each trill higher and higher till the stars unfold around me

Each an intricate set of ordered chaos

With complex sets of bars

Lifting my voice higher and higher until I am lightheaded

And the gray of the early morning predawn

Awakens the chorus to which wren must soprano

Soloing the whole night through with cuckoo and nightingale

Whip-poor-will leading you into the glen of night

While nighthawks shrill fluttery dance raises to the sky and drops

Owl harks his fellow mates to respond

But small little wren continues his song deep into the woods

Where even the loudest calls do not venture

Deep in the shadows a brush-laden trail leads

To the caverns of wren down below

To sing the song of calm warm winds off the heated lands

And of whispering trees with heavy fruited branches

For here is the proud little wren

Who flew on eagles back to reach the sun

To become the king of birds

And he sings such a song begging the bard to venture a try.