Robins in January

Against the puny frost of winter's clime
The cat benignly waits upon the Nelsons' mat,
Not cold, but cowed by raucous swarm
Of birds demented, flying blind
From Pyracantha hedge to Toyon wild,
Eschewing sober meals of insects plain:
Fermented berries muddle our poor Robin's brain.

For once the feline eye does fail to charm
These drugged and shameless stunting birds:
Their nobler instincts gone astray
They swoop and cry like banshees
Loosed upon the cul-de-sac, this saintly Place,
Our leased home, their captures space;
For when they dive like fighter planes,
They drop their blood-red berries where they may
And once again out mother Nature does her dance
With robins turned to bacchanal
And gardens sown by happenstance.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. Undated, but I suspect it was written in January. Under the title was the legend, "for Corinne and Lyle Nelson of San Rafael Place".]