Contraries

You sit on the front steps in love
with the little birds, the finches
& sparrows fidgeting from leafy cover,
not that they need you
cheering them on to eat the seed
at the feeders hung just for them—
sunflower, millet, a white sock of thistle;
but when the hawk lowers its broad
red shoulders and sits, alone,
on the limb of the cherry tree,
after the little birds, seeing it coming,
have scattered like ifs and whens,

you pull for the hawk, admiring
its heft, the turn of its head,
not to mention the unblenched eyes,
its black-banded tail. How could you not
root for this brown serenity lifting off,
grudgeless and oblivious to grudge?
Now the finches & sparrows are back,
with two chickadees, all astir,
flitting their soft agitation.
Once again you fall
for the little birds, their flutter
of yeses quickening the air.

Copyright © 2004 Susan Meyers All rights reserved
from Tar River Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission