Auguries require a due respect
to count for anything influencing deeds,
though reckoning backwards helps, as you’d expect,
convince us they relate to human needs.

To name the day for the first birds you see
is smarter than to study economics,
enough to recommend, it seems to me,
it over college, reading Sunday comics,

consulting stars, or running phrases on.
Exceeding science, it comes near religion.
I have a portent I can base this on,
my horse came in a winner on Crow-Pigeon.

————
Coot-Swallow, everyone!
It’s a glorious spring day here. A coot-swallow day, to name the day after the first two birds I saw after going outside this morning. I had provisionally thought today was Dove-Weathervane, but looking out the window does not count.