Red Cloud Postscript
       

I am draining redwater from the housetank
and in the scrimmage of leaves twirled
where tank stand meets the walls, vacuum
that formed when air tried to equalise—
a harsh brushing up of foliage stripped
from whipped trees—I notice a delicate
golden cup, a nest of the finest inner
stems of wild oats, still flexible within
their outer sheaths of brittle stalk,
telescoped out by tiny pincer beaks,
calipers, wrapped around a lucid
planet of eggs that will core their lives,
but wrenched from its forked anchorage;
nest seething with ants amongst the bone
and down of hungry mouths fed
on storm, parents losing shape while
nest is dashed so oddly buoyant,
thrashed about, all of them, all of it.

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Copyright © 2012 John Kinsella All rights reserved
from Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission