Calling All Muses

The best idea the Muses had this year
was to move the bird feeders closer to my easel window.
The comings and goings of all the creatures in the studio yard are now on display.
Eye candy to an artist.

I’ve watched the squirrel babies grow into a motley crew
tugging forelocks before their leader, The Professor…
named for the brown patches at his sweater’s elbows.

Enjoying the thrill each spring
of the first blaze of indigo
as the buntings return for their annual flyby.

The unflappable finches
who I dubbed en mass
as the kindergartners
and who eternally live up to
that moniker of giddy chaos.

Chippy
the monk.

The stealthy supersonic nuthatches
flying low under the cardinal’s snooty radar.

The blue jay bastards
who scream and hurl
their silly taunts of
hamster mothers
smelling of elderberries
from safely distant turrets
of the neighboring willow.

I tell you the entertainment value is endless.
But it occurred to me
as I was writing these notes
about the pleasure I get
from watching them
as they most surely are watching me…

what must their Muses
have in mind.