Squirrel by Tim Felce (Airwolfhound), via Wikimedia Commons (edited).
All beings in the winter garden
feel each other in the east winds,
that squirrel upside down swinging
on the wire-caged bird feeder
patient finches waiting
for lilacs to cotton up next spring
slugs snug between sheets
of leaves, slime and slick
orb weaver in its web
lacing every night
the hummingbird
comes to my nose
random click reminder
low sugar water
at the red plastic flower
ruby caped in my face
only these two of us
can go both
forward
and backward.
* * *
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who has maintained gardens all her life, sowing the seeds of sanity. She grew up admiring her mother’s roses and vegetable garden. She is an Oregon State University Master Gardener and volunteers at Portland’s Washington Park Rose Test Garden. Her chapbook Urban Wild is available from Amazon and focuses on interactions between humans and wildlife in urban habitat.
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