The finches are back in the swamp maple.

Yellow-sharp among the rusty ‘copters

Where do they go?

What do they know?

looping in & out of its springy ‘do

grasping purchase on diagonal twigs

spy-eyeing what I only imagine

What do they see?

When will I see

beyond this frame?

 

I joined an online photo group this morning:

“What Do You See

from Your Window?”

Portuguese beaches, moose in Norway snow,

vineyards on Carolina’s outer banks,

fall in Tasmania, Moscow sunset.

Where am I?

What do I know?

What do I see?

Spiderweb around the edge, a pasture

there beyond the lawn, the street, barbed wire

fence, then ridge above the river willows,

jagged line of redwood green on blue

for who? Where?

For you? There?

 

The one I know and love is here, her hum,

throp-drop of the cutter, foot clop, bobbin

spin, the warm dry scent of heated fabric

fills the hall between us, a heart’s piece snipped

stitched and quilted for Linus shelter kids,

her offerings to me caress the bed

below the window pane where finches fly.

Where else is there?

A billion billion places

            not to be:

 

Yo! Spain! Like Hoyt Axton, never been there

but you might like a distant redwood tree;

in Cape Town there’s a southern sea of hope;

a friend in Rio pines for cool north winds;

another caught in South America

struggles to return home to Murry Road;

Romanians in the Carpathians!

Look! Here it’s the western edge of the world!

See egrets ply the mist among the fields

then count the snowy plover on the dunes

and pull the purple ice plant from the marsh!

Is this enough?

Within this frame?

 

Vermont may have the real sugar maples

but there are steelhead in the Batawat

across the field and redwoods on the ridge,

swallows swoop and yellow finches frenzy,

the day-bed’s made, the cider’s in the fridge,

I hear a pause in her machinery

and we are here

behind the edge of dunes

beyond the web of frame

time to shelter safely

in our own warm place.