Around here all the gods live in trees.
– Jim Harrison (“The Whisper”)
It’s been tough on the woodpeckers: dry year,
no acorns in the oaks, yet
they still flap and squabble over bugs in the bark.
I can’t see the owls in the dark of dawn
as I wait for the black to disappear, yet
their mournful presence is good company.
Robbin likes the flock of little bushtits
flitting tree to tree, or washing-up at six o’clock
when the timer sprays the Mexican Sage.
Above it all, they’re smarter than the rest of us
to fly where they want—or most needed.
But around here we irrigate the trees.
