Woke late to frank sun
dry hills teeming
with passerines
and one hoarse quail
panting out its love.
How foreign, to let it go
unspoken, not
to sing out
from break of dawn
as if your very heart
were bursting—
In the shade
a dove’s cool notes,
cicadas starting up,
even the breeze
in the sagebrush
discontented
until it too is heard
OPTIONAL POETRY 
I’m very familiar with cicadas, and once they start up, it’s a deafening siren. I’ve been taken with your particular word choices (I’m a new follower), like ‘passerines’ here. Do you use this word, or is it in an obscure word bank somewhere that you decided must belong? I’m intrigued.
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Thanks for the comment! I settled on passerines as I already had “song” and “sing” and songbird seemed too much given this, almost all (or all?) songbirds are passerines so it is a technically a very precise/correct term, and also I like how it sounds– musical, similar to what I was hearing w/the songbirds in the tall grass. I think I have used it in one other poem, and have since added it to my bird poem repertoire 🙂
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Poetic minds are a thing of beauty
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gorgeous write!
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thanks!
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