Catbird Song

You can't really call it singing,
this fractured noise
early mornings
neatly poised on my tent;

but observations,
midrashim on the world from a station
that you can't call high,
but clear, even so, of objections.

A neat slate blue,
this bird with a rusty rump and a velvet cap
as black as the soot from ovens,
is a pert bird that
is caught in a flat contradiction.

It appears amused, and in all its dictation is curt,
sticking catlike mews
in between
as misdirection to serious news.

This bird is the morning's mimic,
its behavior that of a clown
accidently caught
on a stage.

It has found a place in my heart.
It is not immortal.
I receive it as wise, nonetheless.

If at that portal
that connects this world to the next
I awake amiss,
may it be to the quips of this bird.

It's a small request,
but one that would overcome fear
and attest the truth
of what might otherwise might be taken
as sheer projection?