Carolina Wren

 

That never-despairer, the Carolina wren,

He yahoos every morning for being born again,

Though we who can’t hope to rival his mettle

Hear a tinman hawking some battered teakettle.

 

Mid-story you will spy this natty dynamo,

He’s cinnamon above and butterscotch below;

With his stiff but snappy tail and sharp imploring beak

This hyperactive fellow does everything but speak—

 

His breast will swell and his throat will quiver

Then his beak he’ll raise and part to deliver

His four-shout salute through the livelong day

Of hosanna, hallelujah, hurrah and hooray.

 

And surely you’ve said and heard it from many:

“Oh, that Carolina wren! If I had a penny—”

Well, you’re missing the point of this steady woodlot yeller:

We’re all already rich—rich as Rockefeller,

 

And everything is going precisely as planned.

Still, when it’s simply not in us to give praise a hand,

Then forgive him, my friends, forgive him and then

Forgive him again and again and again,

 

For he bounces through this world in which he was flung

And he’s never met a praise he can pass unsung,

And all we can hope is we never learn whether

His yahoos are holding the whole world together.

 

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