It is not a steely-eyed egret nor heft of pelican but just a singing bird that catches my fancy from a balcony perched across from pines lining the marina. Here I make watch of another shifting sky, distant buoy sounding swells in the bay, common robin chiming in on the wind.

resting in my palm

it might pulse at the heart line

practice its pitch

But this bird makes its roost in the forked trunk, where branches droop heavy with cones. Like this robin, I try to perfect a voice in the intimate language of birds, call back at it, parroting the rise and fall of its wistful warbling, practicing the melodic whistling.

the robin carols

in a cathedral of pine

all feather and trill

Everything readies for something – above, wide wings of dark crows…