Waxwings 

by Robert Francis

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety–
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk–
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together–for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.

🕊