Why I Need the Birds by Lisel Mueller

When I hear them call in the morning, before I am quite awake, my bed is already traveling the daily rainbow, the arc toward evening; and the birds, leading their own discreet lives of hunger and watchfulness, are with me all the way, always a little ahead of me in the long-practiced manner of unobtrusive guides.

By the time I arrive at evening, they have just settled down to rest; already invisible, they are turning into the dreamwork of trees; and all of us together— myself and the purple finches, the rusty blackbirds, the ruby cardinals, and the white-throated sparrows with their liquid voices— ride the dark curve of the earth toward daylight, which they announce from their high lookouts before dawn has quite broken for me.

— Alive Together by Lisel Mueller (Page 39)