Mornings open with the full throated call of the House Wren. This opportunistic little bird makes his home where he can find a crevice or opening to build a nest. Like many other birds, he’s a carnivore and competes with the Robin for what worms can be found.
I am a student of wrens.
When the mother bird returns
to her brood, beak squirming
with winged breakfast, a shrill
clamor rises like jingling
from tiny, high-pitched bells.
Who’d have guessed such a small
house contained so many voices?
The sound they make is the pure sound
of life’s hunger. Who hangs our house
in the world’s branches, and listens
when we sing from our hunger?
Because I love best those songs
that shake the house of the singer,
I am a student of wrens.
Poem copyright ©2005 by Thomas R. Smith