Deep, dark music

Last week I was closing the curtains at the end of the day, the end of light and a doe was tipping the bird feeder in the backyard like a kid trying to get that last peanut out of a box of crackerjacks. She froze as I came to the window and tried oh so nonchalantly to walk away. I’ve been wondering who or what has been busy emptying a few of these raccoon-proof feeders, and now I know.

Today I had to move that same feeder so I could see it from the desk in my office. It was windy and cold out, so I refilled all the feeders this morning and left a few hefty handfuls of seeds and peanuts around the yard then was rewarded with a series of little creatures visiting including this downy woodpecker.

Here’s a poem I read last night at the open mic for First Draft, one of the poems I wrote over the summer. I’ve got some poems bubbling about I can work on now.

How is the house so alive?
So much shifting during the day,
cracking into the night.

Skeleton and exoskeleton
within its walls muscle
& still thin bones
that are holding them
helped again by shingle
& shake or log filled
with mud or mud from
hard clay baked all-day
under the heat of the sun.

I want to believe we are its heart
but once built the house doesn’t need
us except for a little maintenance –
if the house is lucky to not be
poorly built or neglected – it does not need.
This house would be happy to shed
its skins and listen to the animals
& wind move through
with their deep, dark music.