Poe had his Raven to symbolize doom and gloom,
Crapping on the statuary and smelling up the room,
Lee had her Mockingbird to epitomize the South
Forbidden to be killed while killing everything else,
Coleridge had the Albatross around his old neck
Reeking of bad luck and questionable judgment,
Stevens had a blackbird, Yeats had a swan,
Tennyson an eagle, Wordsworth a cuckoo,
Shelly a skylark, Twain told a blue jay yarn,
And I have a goldfinch flashing yellow on my feeder,
Announcing that summer has returned,
Wonder where he’s spent the winter.