Birds , Frogs , Deer

I.

A sunny Monday evening,

just before dinner; she sees

four small brown baby birds in a

flowerpot upon on the porch.

We saw the nest a week

or two ago;

Or maybe it was yesterday.

Stay-at-home- time blurs and bends.

I accept insomnia instead of dreams;

Embrace distorted days and dates.

I was awake last night for almost

A month and a half. Honestly.

Back to that small dark nest

tucked away-

The tiniest of speckled eggs became

these new, silent and hungry mouths-

a yearning she and i understood.

Fragile miniscule beaks open as

moments of delicate beauty.

II.

Last night, we walked the stony road

that stretches behind the house

And runs parallel to the railroad.

She stops and points out to me:

in a long stretching puddle

two frogs atop one another at dusk.

Amphibian lovers, eyes above water.

They sat still as we bent to view them-

She thought they were stones at first.

They stared back at us without comment.

III.

Night passes. Another walk at mid-day

she points out in the same puddle:

Tiny black dots splayed upon

Looped rings of clear and milky mucous.

Sweet, froggy love manifest:

Beginnings of tadpoles and promise.

Days later they will be gone.

IV.

At dusk a few days ago ,

We watched through kitchen window

As six deer gracefully bounded

Through the far reach of the yard,

Just beyond the barn and past the garden.

Each white tail disappeared

Moved silent over the brushy bank into the woods.

Brown and auburn –

Vital and majestic animal motion

V.

These stay-at-home days-

Light sometimes blandly bleeds.

And Dissects hours irregularly.

Half- blue mornings slowly

Give way to cold breezy afternoons-

When huge dense clouds -

block the sun intermittently

and create island- patches of light

Moving over the fertile farm fields.

This life moving and forever passing -

Some days I wear sadness like a coat-

But she shakes me out of it

While the wind carries

Transient, streaming shadows over

hills of shimmering wind-blown grass,

Spring now growing slow and green.