roofs

Roofs

 I wonder if in winter when birds

perch on/in the empty

branches of the maple canopy if

there's a quickening in

the heartwood of the tree (discrete

to save heat) and if the tree

would risk it so deep 

into winter: the weight

of a chickadee or a pigmy

nuthatch taking a seed to pen

and eat like tugging

at a stuck purse zipper and then

a kip as the men say

in their war trenches after guard

duty is wrapped for them

and their stiff vision of the hills

the empty trees and voided

sky begins her perpetual revolution

of light.  I've gone of track and I do

that too easily: drift circle

around to where I believe

I started but it's all 

gone to ghosts --even the trees

are empty like they'd seen me

stumbling up clumsy and they ache

for the way something graceful

can descend on them

appreciate just for the sake of 

appreciating and gladly take the weight.

Today, in early April, the Easter

lilies are arriving like green

knives flying up through the dirt

in their own intimate precisions--

they are a matrimonial

agreement near the trunks

of certain trees and unmovable

stones.  We open the noses

of cold soil around them

and think we're making an easier

way.  Piles of detritus.  Righting 

the cockeyed birdhouse I spy 

years-ago-set-in twigs stuffed inside

by house wrens.  Try to break up

their keeping, frightened I've made

another mess

of things I leave the condominium to

it's own echo and lean my toe

on the blade end of the spade

I've stupidly laid face up 

in the dirt gathering sky in its rusted

left out in the rain face

though one day I did see 

a chickadee drinking from the small

puddle there before it flew

into the white pine and sang.