ring of blue

Hooray for personal illustrations!! This is the tight sketch/color study for an illustration I am starting based off of this poem:

I sing to you, I bring to you, a ring of blue, my love.
Through swollen sky no bird could fly, but I alone would come.
This gale may claim my feathered frame, though my heart belongs to you.
For it cannot be, my love, you see - no bird may love a man.

I'm thinking mixed media - mostly acrylic and digital, but I may print it out on a nice high quality textured paper and embellish it with embroidery.... Or I was thinking I might just go ahead and embroider the whole bird (as in my North American Review illustration) and do the hand and background acrylic and then put it all together digitally... We'll see.