At the "bird" feeder, late February

It's been a tough Winter. Meteorologically, it ended with February. We've been going through lots of sunflower seeds and suet, but we haven't been feeding just birds. May March be a kinder, gentler month!

sunrise tangled up in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

a snowy dunce cap on the bluebird house

Photo by J. Harrington

the tall one knocks seeds down for the short one

Photo by J. Harrington

then helps herself

Photo by J. Harrington

and Runny Babbit gets some leftovers

Photo by J. Harrington

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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