You asked me why I’d chosen you.
You hate to give or get a hollow gift,
you said.  You asked me how I knew

the girl as gift who parked her truck to stalk
the raptors on the wires.   It was my test.
(We two still park to watch the red-tailed hawk.)

And I remember how you wept at every blue
near indigo.   That bird, not like the rest;
you knew he flew for you.  And so I knew.

That blue!  Too deep to fit the woods, it fits a brush,
as if a quill-ink master spilled his best
into the genome of the shyest thrush.

For you they neither toil nor spin, yet wear
the pigment Leonardo had to grind from shell.
To feel a hue as gift – is you.  Is rare.

To talk as if a bird is gift is prayer.
I am your bird theophanous; I fell
from clouds to kiss you there, and here, and there.

No blue is much too blue to be the blue
of heaven, nor is any bird who flew not Jesus’ kiss.
To be His kiss the bird just needs to be for you;
for you He would not fly a hollow gift.