You rise from dry meadowgrass

With a laborious flutter, more

Wing-action than the shortness of your flight

Would seem to call for

And so it seems obvious

Flying for you is a steep effort

Nature exacts, though not without amends,

Bobolink, reedbird;

The wiry tones of your song

Set forth a waltz in clear whistles

At first, so well-sustained! But then you break

Down the bars, stampede

Your notes into a reckless

Song fantasia piped at lightning speed

No one can follow — not the barn swallow

Who soars with such grace,

Not the bird-watcher stalking

The field, not blind Tom with all his skill

At sound-catching, his passion for filling

Darkness with music.

Ricebird, reedbird, bobolink,

Your song is the strained apology

For all of the weak-winged, condemned to sing,

Because we cannot fly.