Wagtail

Boppiting about on spiky toes, dainty sticks as quaint as any.
But why?
Did some mutant gene tip your balance
weight your top-end top-heavy
requiring you to continually adjust your fulcrum, back and forth?
Or was there some distasteful precondition - stepping in sticky mud or tar -
that needed to evolve this gait?
more simply still, little friend, despite being a waterside specialist
and although your genus are not waders
are you averse to getting wet feet?

Your fastidious, spritely demeanour seems to suggest
a nervy disposition, even an epicure or fuss-pot…
…but why?
- a turbo propeller for ever being wound up:
an unthinking add-on by way of a rudder
your hall-mark, post-mark.

A desire to high-step
out of trouble -a picky habit?
So feather-light that gravity cannot anchor you?
A way to catch the eye, show-off your pretty plumage?
or maybe flushing prey out
with your flapping?
You dash here and there as if unsteady, your teeny mind unsure
darting about, sort of knees up
– as if you had knees!
All the while that ubiquitous tail jerks busily away.

You brighten any day, the way you flit about, dithering and dabbling
with your undulating, rocking-horse flight
and then, for variety, how you lance tadpoles and zig-zag after flies;
juggling all these styles of locomotion
with as much ease
as you waggle that tail.