The Ladderback Woodpecker
hangs from the underside
of the suet cage. Eleven
new chicks scratch the grass
in their pen as their mother
has shown them. Four
House Finches, scarlet
heads flashing
in morning light, take short
shifts in the birdbath.
Three new Bluebirds
follow their parents
into the mown field
beside our house.
The Song Sparrow chicks
in the nest in the rain
gutter cry hungry
when their father nears,
a grub in his beak.
The one Red-Wing
Blackbird that visits our yard
rests on the feeder. And then
amid all this
bounty, the epiphany
we have sought all summer,
there, at the sugar water,
the first Hummingbird.
~ Bill Sheldon
William Sheldon lives with his family in Hutchinson, Kansas. His poetry and prose have appeared widely in small press publications. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Retrieving Old Bones (Woodley, 2002), Into Distant Grass (Oil Hill Press, 2009), and Rain Comes Riding (Mammoth, 2011).
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 