For the birds

As you have gathered, I love wildlife refuges and birding. One of my all-time favorite places to go is the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Because it is close to my home, I go there often. Today the weather was changeable and the rain discouraged me from painting, but I was thrilled to go to the Refuge.

How different it is for me to go to a park where for a quarter, anyone can buy a sack of breadcrumbs and seed and the once-wild birds come close to the sack-holders in an unnatural way.

Birds in the Park

Natural caution lost

you pursue grain filled hands

lazy, survival sure

and greed

I walk among you

whispering fly north

to the Wildlife Refuge

where you can live secure and free

Ignorance is taking comfort

in captivity and bondage

calling it a good life.

Overblown

Tulips

They drop their petals
like withered crones now.

But only last week,
they were modest, closed
simple blooms folded in
like young ladies
legs crossed properly.
Stems trimmed
they drink, thirsty
exuberant in their youth.

Each day they open
relaxing tight hold on
Gentility, deportment.
Growth unbends,
stems curve
seeking to drop down,
reach out.

Then they are wanton,
innermost parts fully exposed
pollen dripping, passion staining
petals yellow, sticky, wet
nothing hidden
translucent,
open, flat.

Now parched, wrinkled,
dropping petals
color faded
a somber death.