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).