Once again, winter is just around the corner and I don’t know where the time went. Already, morning glories have spread out and covered most of the back garden that I swore this year I would keep up with, while only a bushel or so of green tomatoes are still clinging to their vines. The little field mice are venturing closer and closer to the house, looking for entrances from which to escape the cold at the first hint of snow.

Holly Day 

 Free

The little girl runs into the flock of pigeons, determined

to catch just one of the fat little birds, hold its warm breast

close to her ear, against her soft cheek. If she were older, she might wonder

what sort of secrets her captured bird could tell her

if forced to speak in her tongue, but since she’s so young

there’s only love in her heart and grasping hands.

The birds flutter around her in a wave of gray and white, just out of reach

but not far enough to cause the curious onlookers

to leave without dumping out the contents of the little brown bags in their hands

cookie crumbs and bits of donuts and bread.

The little girl’s black shoes crush through

the piles offerings, muddy up the bits of bread and bakery items,

but because they’re just birds

they really don’t care.

The Last Suitcase       

I watched him float away like a single tuft of dandelion fluff

out of my arms and out of the house and into his own life

and then the door closed and I was alone. There was not one moment

in the past twenty years that I thought about this day

without thinking I’d be filled with relief, and joy, and the feeling

of a job well-done, or at least adequately done—

I was not prepared for the grief, the oppressive constant knot in my heart

the nagging feeling that there was so much I should have done

so many things I should have said

so many missed opportunities to let my son know

how wonderful he made everything for me

how I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now that he’s gone. 

At the Time of the Photograph

At the last minute, the camera man decides we should also dress like Eskimos

hands us each a folded sealskin jacket and pair of trousers, mittens so big

they look like baseball mitts. We all laugh uncomfortably

as we change into the heavily-oiled outerwear

try to apologize to our indigenous hosts through eye-rolling and shrugging

as we succumb to the camera man’s artistic vision.

When the photos show up in the mail, months later, we can’t help but notice

everyone in the photo is wearing the same expression, visitor and native alike.

It’s like someone said “look exasperated!” before taking the shot. My husband tells me

you can barely tell the Inuits  apart from the scientists, we all look

so much alike, as if we were all born and lived in this place of ice.

Bones

The pigeons would gather, angry, hungry

competing for each tiny crumb, every crust of bread

tossed over so casually by watching diners, even chase

errant cigarette butts thrown off to the side

as well, leaving behind their dignity as they

ripped everything to shreds.

There was an old crow that would watch them

every day at the park, head cocked to one side

as if in perpetual judgment and condemnation.

It was impossible to tell who he or she was judging, though

the diners who fed the birds for their own cheap amusement

or the pigeons willing to debase themselves

for a piece of cheese, the corner of a sandwich.

In the Corners

I have heard there are spiders that catch birds, and I wonder

how big are the birds? Can a bird-catching spider

catch a hawk, wrap those heavy, mighty wings in strands

of sticky filament strong enough to subdue the beating

of fierce muscle and breast, pin an osprey to a tree limb

evade the talons and beak of an eagle long enough

to deliver its powerful sting, a bite strong enough to end

even this?

Or do they only turn their attentions

to the tiny birds, hummingbirds smaller than butterflies

tiny wrens that make their own nests out of spidersilk and dew?

And when they catch them, is it a dramatic battle

to the death, but in miniature, a fair fight between

upraised talons and dripping fangs, or does it all

just end in the web, bright wings outstretched

wasted from fluttering against the silvery restraints

stretched between the limbs of trees?

Holly Day