Scenes from the Kitchen Window

Scene 1 – Early Morning

A red-wing black bird, two gray doves, bright red cardinal and motley brown sparrows

Scene 2 – Mid Morning

Four gray doves, gray/black titmouse, zebra striped/red headed Downy Woodpecker and the motley brown sparrows

Scene 3 – Lunch Time

Three red-wings, yellow-green/yellow/zebra-striped goldfinches, two blue jays with black and white markings, black/gold filigree starlings and the motley brown sparrows

Scene 4 – After Lunch

A gray/white/black nuthatch, gray dove, purple-headed house sparrow, two motley red-green-gray-brown momma cardinals and the motley brown sparrows

Scene 5 – Climax, Mid-Afternoon

Then a large gray/brown/white soft blob of a cottontail bunny moves through among reds, grays, blues, blacks, yellows, zebra stripes, and browns, throwing everything out of order for a few seconds

Closing Scene – Denouement

The bunny remains calm, everyone returns to eat—color and action tranquilly unite through the Kitchen Window, viewed on Easter weekend

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Back Yard Visitors

Twelve little goldfinches

Feasted in the grass

Half the size of sparrows

But sleek with a lot less sass

Bold zebra wing stripes

And body yellow-green

Hard to see in foliage

While moving as a team

Panic in the Crawl Space

Peck peck rat-a-tat peck rat-a-tat

I look up at the ceiling

Not a mouse or squirrel, they gnaw

Peck peck bang

Not a sparrow, it claws, scrapes

I stand on a chair, whack the ceiling

Silence

Peck-a-tat-rat-bang

Husband goes outside

No openings

Later, we enter the garage

Must get groceries

Startled by a large white and red

fluttery, panicky bird

flapping everywhere, desperately

slamming into the windows

Husband opens the garage door

letting a red-bellied woodpecker

swiftly swoop to freedom

after a whole day looking for escape

We had no clue a bird that big

had gotten trapped in the garage

Just glad it wasn’t a mouse…

The Bluejay, the Red-Belly Woodpecker, the Nuthatch and the Downy Woodpecker

share at the suet

one comes one goes one watches

much to my delight

Rejection=Rebuffed, Snubbed, Denied

After an afternoon walk in perfect pre-Thanksgiving weather, perfect sky, wispy cloud pieces, bright, cheery, I sat on the porch swing to catch my breath and saw:

On the electric wire across the highway, perched a long-beaked bird, looking around the world, being the size of a robin. A small sparrow flitted up and landed next to Long-Beak. Long-Beak glanced over, saw the sparrow, viewed him as an intruder, rude, crude, socially unacceptable, and flew up and up then glided over and over to the right down and down onto the other end of that electric wire, leaving the sparrow sitting goofily by himself. The sparrow fluffed his feathers, shook, then hopped over the pole on its left to the wire on the other side, hidden by all the wire coiling and knots. Then Long-Beak flew away.

Humans aren’t the only creatures that get rejected when the wing of friendship reaches out.