Photo credit: Robert Wexelblatt

She’s already been there a week,
day and night, in high winds, hail,
snow.  Not one seed has passed her beak;
she’s that determined not to fail.
Her nest’s only twigs, hardly more,
heaped up between my gutter’s drain
and the end-board.  I saw it pour
down over her, the cold hard rain,
and watched the north wind ruffle
her feathers.  A red-tailed hawk
patrols above; she can’t shuffle
her feet, stretch out her wings, or squawk.
I’d like to help, to toss a crumb;
but, afraid I’ll scare her off, I
keep watch, once in a while drum
on the window, a feckless ally
drawing her black eye, give a wave,
beam an encouraging grin. 
That hawk’s a worry; I want to save
her from the peril she’s in.
Sympathy’s useless. I can’t do  
more than cheer her, witness her fate,
hope it warms up, the sky stays blue
and watch the future incubate.
Locked down by life’s imperatives
—two eggs, one virus—we’re stuck fast
in our respective narratives,
unsafe and silent, both harassed.

Majolica plate with stone-ground crackers 
laid out like coins around a block of cheese 
that tasted faintly of foreign goats; black,
green, and maroon olives in one crystal 
bowl, another for the pits, one more for
salted cashews.  Outside, the children squealed,
romping on a trampoline screened-in for 
safety.  Our team was coming from behind 
and we leaned closer, provisionally 
enthralled.  Suspense, tentative cheers, groans at 
a penalty, breaths held until the arcing pass 
was caught and three o’clock sunlight poured through 
linen drapes like a blessing. And when our 
boys took the lead we rose like sportive gods 
gazing down from their mountain. The machine 
guns, mortar shells, the billowing acrid 
smoke, screams and dismembered smears of red all
lay far below the sylvan horizon.