I. Dawn on the Northern Marsh Cawn-honk! — the foghorn feathered: bass clef stitched in sunrise grey. Its throat is a brass embouchure draped in dew, summoning first light to ripple across puddleglass.
II. Heraldry of the Honk Plumage: tux-sable mantling over snow-bib cuirass. Bill: cobblestone chisel. Eye: compassiris keeping true north even in sleeplorn drift. Soul: map-scroll unfurling between thaw and freeze.
III. Ode in Seven Windbeats
- V-Caravaner — you arrow the ether, geometry of fellowship etched on the sky’s parchment.
- Sentinel-squire — breast-broad, hiss-ready, you guard downy nascents from sneakered giants.
- Lawn-parliamentarian — you hold court on manicured commons, legislating breadcrumbs and stroller awe.
- Skyline-forager — city ponds become archipelagoes in your beak-charted sea.
- Molt-monk — when pinions slough, you cloister beside reed-cloaked cloacae, praying in mute plumework.
- Compass-cantor — your cry is both dirge and drum, metronoming miles under star-quilts.
- Forever-returner — you leave only to re-etch the same horizon, proving departure is half a circle.
IV. Antiphon of the Goslings Pip-peep the yellow ovals! They fleet upstream through mother-feather shadows, rewinding evolution with each web-wobble toward open water.
V. Mid-Summer Reverie Riverbanks boom with your brass brigade; park-goers pause mid-picnic to salute the asphalt patrol. Honk echoes off picnic tables like a municipal gong.
VI. Autumn’s Trumpet Line As leaves confetti the lake, your squadron gathers, tuning throats to the key of elsewhere. One call, and the air itself vectors south.
VII. Coda for the Migrant Baronet Steer the wind carefully, sky-scribbler; return with frost-kissed stories and let your honk sow thaw in the marrow of March.
—fin—