I own a bird dog.

No birds were harmed in the making of this photo.

While I was taking pictures of flowers, Mudd managed to slip away from me.  When I found him he was sniffing a fuzzy-something and refused to come to me when I called.  I walked closer to the dog and saw what he was snuffling.  It was a baby robin.  The bird looked hot, it's been 100 + in Iowa with no end in sight.  I picked robin up, took him out of the sun, and placed him under a shady evergreen shrub.  I assume the bird is alive and doing well.

a fever poem (it was 100)

Let's let
Spring and Fall
Become bouncing verbs
reserved for pogostick stomachs
on asphalt driveway.


Because that pretty robin
you watched fall from the sky,
well, I'm pretty sure
He was ready to die.


So don't sweat it.
Verbs happen.


And now all those
banjo croaking frogs
alive in the pond
can become our new
onomatopoeia


For a season that drops
fawns into the woods
of our backyard
and drops robins onto
a springtime altar


Made of mud and corn.