Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Lethal Beauty


This is when I like winter, when the sun shines 
on the trees, melting globs of snow that 
then freeze into crystalline sparks of light 
on the branches.


People began to emerge from their cocoons this morning, 
to start cars that merely groaned and whined
instead of purring from the pleasure of being started.
One neighbor needs to thaw his poor car;
standing humbled and shrunken in a drift of snow
it had no shelter or barrier from the frozen air.
Why is it we expect a machine to perform
whenever asked, without realizing it, too,
needs some consideration for the way its bits
react to the elements? Shoot, I've neither seen
nor heard a bird in three days. I expect
they are perched beneath the snow-laden
branches of fir trees or building eaves,
their feathers fluffed up against the cold.
Sort of like me, except I will need to go
to the store fairly soon for some seeds 
for myself  and my little family
(my cat and my turtle).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you had a feeder you would see birds. They are, as you surmise, fluffed up against the cold, but quiet, even in their fights among themselves for a perch or a spot where the sunflower seed falls.

Speedway said...

Hello, 22bb,etc - I put up a suet cake a few days ago. Finally, some grackles found it, taking chunks while fighting among themselves.

William Kendall said...

Beautiful shots!