Birdwatching

 I'm having a hard time coming up with a narrative about feeding birds, so I'm sharing a few poems instead. The Mary Poppins' song, "Feed the Birds" is running through my head as I write, and I see an old woman scattering corn for pigeons in a park in my head. Out my window, woodpeckers and cardinals feed on suet and seed cakes, and a flock of robins strips the last crab apple from a tree.

After Spring

A barn swallow nests 

in shelter eaves,

pointed wings

gliding in corners

adding a tough stalk

to gray and black pellets,

    lone

chin hair in cupped mire. 

Bird Watching

Cooper hawks perch on posts

dead trees pile

marked brown pines

crumble in the wind

Scrub jays land

on a backhoe loader

tape-linked pegs surround

blackened palmettos break

turkey buzzards darken an arid field

ivory shards scatter

whitewashed shells

speckle black with gray

A red-tail swoops

from a backyard fence

blackbirds take flight

their red wings locked by talons

Another sparrow

knocks on a picture window

and

falls.

Preserve

Across a sun-whitened thoroughfare

weathered decks overlook narrow swamp grass

drifting to shallow ponds and a grove

of thin trees. On a deck rail a faded sign--

images of water birds with barely

legible names: white ibis, reddish egret,

blue heron (little and great) and wood stork

like the pair walking through brush beside a path.

Long legged chicks between them, they cross the road

forage for insects in spike grass burrows

left by armadillos, and wander toward

the grove where scrub jays

swoop from live oaks, grab

peanuts out of fingers

peck holes in earth

to bury them in the sand.