It’s February, and a finch couple
flits from branch to branch
between waxy camellia leaves,
plucking at blossoms, at twigs.
It’s early yet to feather a nest,
so maybe they’re searching for
aphids, simply sustaining
themselves in this long winter.

I, too, need sustaining
in this long, bleak winter
and turn to poetry to search
for truth, diversion, comfort,
calm, as entire branches of
our great nation are stripped
of softness. Too riddled,
we’re told, with corruption.

And while pruning keeps things
healthy, this is far from healthy —
all decency peeled and hacked
to feed and feather already
substantial nests.

And I am at a loss which way to lean
with my poems in this storm. To settle
in and steel myself against the cold
currents left after caring and kindness,
inclusion and liberty and justice for all
are gone. To write of soft feathered things
staying the course, perching in the soul,
and singing loudly for all to hear?

Or to steel myself with implements of war?
To load my poems with brimstone and
fire, flashes of anger, to sound the alarm,
to blast the eye and ear of friends,
neighbors, countrymen.

And whichever way I go… will anyone
listen? Will anyone care? As they
don’t seem to care anymore anyway.