The red mavis, better known as the brown thrasher, sings a tireless improvised song, "varied . . . usually pleasing," lambent with "the gladness of the open air." In this volume, Merrill Gilfillan draws on casual rhymes and lost commonplaces, composing his poems en plein air. He ranges from the Carolina woods to the California coastline, and from "salted haikus" to prose meditations. Everywhere, his writing is marked by deftness, exuberance, and appetite: "Always hungry—Toujours / la faim as it reads on / the family crest."