December

It’s time to choose the clothes
I’ll wear this winter,
maybe something bold,
or turtlenecks and sweaters for warmth.
It will be cold.

Snowflakes soon will swarm
and mound overnight into drifts,
sky’s silent gift
to a season brown, black and gray,
snow adding white.

Small birds flit about the feeders.
I feed them seed,
peanut butter, corn kernels and lard.

The owls fit out nests with chicks,
cover them with down,
and hunt day and night for hot blood
to keep the naked chicks warm.

Myself, I burn gas in a furnace
to force hot steam
through heavy metal pipes
too hot to touch.

For evening meals,
hot soup and fresh baked bread
is the only thing
for peasants and royalty alike.

What’s not to like
if you’re warm and wrapped in blankets,
reading books in bed
while drifts build up outside.

The birds I’ve fed, I hope, are tucked
out of wind in a niche that’s dry.
It’s for the little birds I worry,
so fragile and so full of hurry.