A blue and gray scrub jay
tucks morsels of food
beneath a roof shingle.
Browning leaves from a sycamore
tumble beneath an unrestricted sky.
Engines from the street
rev anxiously.
Sometimes it seems
they speak to me.
The train horn blows:
Oh – ohhhhh. Oh – ohhhhh.
A finch, a tiny downy woodpecker, a towhee
mind their business in the
skeletal twigs of a tree branch,
so focused on what’s right before them
I wonder how I even think about tomorrow.
A crow scolds: how can you be so freaking slow?
One smooth-backed seagull
sails back and forth
across the school yard.
Kids sprint back and forth
like the leaves skittered by the wind.
Why walk if you can run?
This is love,
its arched unfolding,
fragile and big
untouchable as sky.
This is love
warm and solid as earth.