The soft notes
of a blue-headed vireo
lure me away from my desk.
Night’s dust on my glasses
turns to a veil of gauze
in the noon-time sun.
The stench of manure
wafts up from the valley.
The vireo snatches insects from the air.
Sleight-of-hand
A chickadee in the garden
fills its beak with thistle down
and flies off to its nest.
I take a closer look:
that’s no down, but my own white hair
from last month’s haircut.
A spring azure butterfly
lands on the blue gravel road
and disappears.
Remnant
An oak tree toppled
in a high wind 20 years ago
has rotted almost to nothing,
leaving just the twist of roots—
spokes of a rimless wheel,
crippled star.
As if whatever hardness
kept this clutch from holding tight
now won’t let it go.
Risen
The sun slips over
the gray pelt of a vole zipping
from one hole to another
and catches on a distant gleam
of frost-heaved flotsam,
luring me to go look.
A beer bottle at the base of a tree
rests in a cradle of leaves,
bluer than the sky.
Makeshift
What would the wind do
without the daffodils’ yellow
hoopla of blooms?
Tree leaves are still
packed tight as gunpowder
in their slim cartridges.
When the wind brings
the rumor of a storm,
only the rhododendron turns pale.
Trailing arbutus
The first warm day.
The mountain hums with insects
and the valley with motorcycles.
Between twists of old coyote scat
and dried grass curled
tight as pubic hair,
close to the ground, the trailing
arbutus’ fragrant parts
begin to open.
Walking onions
The phoebes across the road
carry beakfuls of mud
into their nest.
Planting onions,
my thumb- and fingernails harvest
black crescents.
This summer while I’m gone,
the walking onions will re-plant themselves,
head-down in the dirt.
Empty
Just after your departure,
I find half a hummingbird nest
and an old broken crock.
The sun comes out.
A fly circles the lip
of a purple crocus.
The kestrel hunting meadow voles
keeps returning
to the same electric line.
Lotic
A winter wren darts low
over the rushing stream
and unwinds its hurdy-gurdy song.
Not all water-lovers
are bouyant in the same way.
The waterthrush walks
on the bottom, tail bobbing
as if spring-loaded. We stand
dripping in the rain.
Camberwell Beauty
Camera out, you stalk
a mourning cloak,
avid as a book thief
for that two-page
spread of darkness
glowing in the leafless woods,
you and the butterfly—
both quick to fly but loathe to leave.
And edged in light.