Sabbath Poems, 1985 VII: The Winter Wren is Back, Quick

(Found here)

VII

The winter wren is back, quick

Among the treeroots by the stream,

Feeding from stem to stone to stick,

And in his late return the rhyme

Of years again completes itself.

He makes his work a kind of play.

He pauses on a little shelf

Of rock, says “Tick!” and flirts away,

Too busy in that other world

His hungry vision brings to sight

To be afraid. He makes a gnarled

Root graceful with his airy weight,

Breathes in the great informing Breath,

Made little in his wing and eye,

And breathes it out again in deft

Bright links of song, his clarity.

~Wendell Berry