The Song of the Say's Phoebe

I awoke to the song of a Say’s Phoebe

Calling me out to the dawn,

It pumped its tail while on the tall vent pipe,

It lifted its beak to the gray monsoon sky,

And as the sun broke through the wooly clouds

Suspended over the Rincon mountains

A single sunbeam reached out to caress

The soft gray breast of the bird who sang

with such a plaintive voice:

A plaintive voice,

--a  two-note sigh,

 I heard its longing

Fill the sky.

~Kathie Adams Brown (September 12, 2012)