My Best Friends are Juncos

Dim purple mornings into moody evenings
I hear them every day.
They take turns, I think, to 
check, check, check on me
with their relentless little clicks.

“You sure sit on the deck a lot,” the male says
from the tip of the branch. “And just stare,”
He twitches and darts looking puzzled and annoyed
“She cries sometimes, too,” the female says from
Deeper in the bough. 

I hear only a steady check, check, check urging me to 
check what? Check myself? Check this out? Check in?
Or is it just a check, like, are you OK? 

Sometimes they sing a song, and it’s lovely 
but I suspect it’s for each other, not for me.
When they land near me it’s only check, check check.

The check, I learn, means distress or needing to maintain contact. 
“Yes,” I tell them, “I am in distress.”
And I definitely need to maintain contact.
I need them, and they seem to know. 
But I am not the only one.

He finds the nest in the shed’s eave.
I would have never seen it.
“You can see their tiny eyes” he says.
“They shine in the evening light.”

I do see.
They do shine
like a bright future.
The joy of new life fills me.
“Check,” I say back to them. “Check, check, check.”