EIGHT: BIRDHOUSE AND OTHER

And it sees the storms and the sun both. Wooden, so mysterious to think of the little birds that come to visit, peak out, go away, alight again. How blue can the sky become? - Cloudless save for one single puff-stream, a happenstance in all the air. In the summers, under and about the birdhouse, all kind and manner of activity ensues. Bees, bugs, spiders. One time a snake came across there its movements slick and sure like the devil himself. But then it went. The day was too bright for the devil. Summer warmth, the star pulsing, maybe solar storms on there, and winter with its mounds of snow. Does ice form on the wood? Oh, there is no bird then but the brave winter bird and he isn’t talking. There is so much around those parts. Muddied stream, frozen in Februaries strong icy grip. Old farmer’s fence, plants growing atop, wrapping around and around and looking still here and there up to the sky. And it sits, the wooden thing, an artifact of care, - different, opposite than a bomb. The bird understands. You didn’t think it was in there peaking out but it was. They fly their blue and black and green selves ‘round the whole miles. And you know what? Sometimes below yellow butterflies dance about like bits of paper cut out and come to life in fields that sprawl under the watchful skies.