Robin at Vespers

by Mike Beasley

“Hey Daddy, we shouldn’t call him Redbreast
Because his breast is not red, really.
It looks more like rust, like that patch
On the bed of my red wagon left out in the rain,
Or that rusty shade of sunlight draped
Over the neighbor’s porch railing.
So we should call him Robin Rustbreast. . .”
Thus goes my son’s sermon as he mounts
The beam of our snow-white front porch.

Snow white? Wait:
It’s just a wood railing painted white,
Another made object in the vespered light.
What forged link, what coupling, what tie
Hath ‘snow’ with ‘white’ except to magnify
The skin and soul of a fairy-tale maiden
Tricked into death by a loathsome hag,
Kissed back to breath by a chivalrous stag?

And what sunset hue lies on that lake horizon?
Robin-egg blue, you call it; not precisely, I say.
It is one of our blues, I grant—but whose?
Your blues and my blues are hardly the same;
They float elusive, like vagabond shades
Wandering in the universe beneath our skin.

Plato reasons that Robin Redbreast is,
Whether or not we agree on its name.
I’m game. Consensus is a fragile shelter,
But shelter nonetheless. Besides, son,
Your mom claims that dinner is ready,
And I’m pretty sure of something:
You and I are starving.