Evergreen

Free Verse

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

From a tidy indoor perch

lush mistletoe green as Spring
seeps through the screens put up
to protect us from bloodsucking guests,
collect the breeze with a wall of mesh
and deflect the wild world.

Gray eyes skim to the other side
for the dart of hungry beaks
swooping for a lucky bite
against the untamed sky.

Their desire
binds air to wing, taps nectar
for such famished blood

as lunch
for us, is commonplace. Both hearts

are billowed sails, found
by moments when the howling wind
dies down.

The cool sun and the poison hemlock paint
the forest brown and us
evergreen.

The Sheltering of Trees