Ladybird

Ladybird

Two o’clock a Robin is scolding,
Ten o’clock another chatters in defense,
Like a bomber pilot I mark
  The scattershot birds by their hours,
Reference points level on the dial

Keeping the watch, standing the guard,
Making the work of marauders too hard,
They are the sentries, the males, as behind each one
  Quiet as the breeze is still
Sits a hen, low in her thatched-mud cup

As does she, our Ladybird, in the arborvitae,
Black pool eyes all sides of day,
Eastertide come gone away,
  As you roost your treasures cerulean blue,
May I tell you what we will do?

We’ll remain still, dear Ladybird,
It’s just the snaking wind you heard

The Mow Be Gone

The Mow Be Gone

Upon the lawn of Robin Hood green
Appear the dusky Mow-Be-Gone,

They whose planting by unknown hands
Is rarely contemplated, if even conceived

The push mower runs loud on the ears
Its blade unsharpened many years

As each swath of the mowers path
Scythes as cruelly as the last

Claiming the mauve-gay Mow-Be-Gone,
 ‘til none remain save in this song

Narcissus with Wings

Narcissus with Wings

When you meet a swan
  There are always two,
One upon the water, formal,
  The other below, reflected as normal,
Both with their wings arched high, or below,
  Each as Heaven or Neptune’s feather clouds,
Each bird thinking themselves the more noble,
  Dismissive at the sight of their double

These two, though together,
  Disregard each other,
Dipping through the waterline neck to neck,
  Seem to swallow the other’s head
Deep down into their crop,
  There to waive at us while diving
Both tails, up and down,
  One big bird of two head-butts

Conjoined about the plimsoll
  They swim with unseen feet,
Proclaim themselves the masters over geese
  And process as the most adamant of crumb thieves,
Appointing themselves both cheater, referee, and warden,
  Yet to whom we toady bread tossers fear to harden,
For, while unsound (they never speak),
  No mute swan met was ever meek

Scarlet Heights

Scarlet Heights

A distinctive cadence he sings out
  The Common House Finch his vernal song

“How do you like this nest box my dear,
  It’s got a good opening our size”

His call is melodious and an earful,
  A wonder above Nature’s background of baseness,
The rapping of a hard headed woodpecker,
  The gobbling rut of Tom Turkey on the ridge

“The knot hole you found is not as big
  But is safer high up off the ground”

His Hen betrothed merely looks on and twitches,
  She having no mind to announce
To the whole forest
  All their plans and intentions

“A high nest up is surely safer,
  But is there space there for more than three?”

Which nesting place they’ll choose will not be known today,
  For it’s the silent Hen who has the final say