A Friend's Face and Feathered Friends

My partner and I were walking through the forest.  I was feeling a bit lonely.  We stopped to hand feed chickadees sunflower seeds and at that same moment, bumped into an old friend coming from the opposite direction on the same trail.  This poem tells the rest of the story…..

photo: David Papp

Whirring wings

Whirrrrrrrrring in my ears

Feathered flashes

Flashing before my eyes

Trying to focus

On the face before me

Trying to hear

What she was saying

While incessant whirring

Frequent flashing

Fought for my attention

Her face and

The feathered frenzy

The face beamed pleasure

The whirring ignited joy

Seemingly all alone

And then suddenly

A friend’s face and feathered friends

Belied that foolish assumption

The hubris of thinking one can

Step outside of all our relations

That we can be unrelated

That we can step outside of the web

And be a lone

And then a spider suspended

Impossibly by slender silk

From cedar branch crossing the path

In December

Web weaver waving in the breeze

Whispers gently

So you thought you were alone?

On a January morning, on the same trail, the story was told again:

Avian Ambassadors

Two days past, the snow came

Now, bright sun shining reveals

The forest story in black and white

Like a news report of happenings.

Two humans walked here before us

We follow their tracks on the ski trail.

Crossing the path perpendicularly from

Cover to cover are the footpawhoofprints

Of mice, voles, rabbits and hares,

Ruffed Grouse, squirrels and deer.

While, running “beside” ours

Are the carnivores: coyote and fox.

Our open trail makes for easy movement

And provides intersections points with those

Who dash from cover into the open

And back again.

Reminders that we are not alone

In the forest, on the land.

Our footprints are in the minority

As we visit this home of our relations.

And the only forest dwellers that we meet

With our eyes and our ears and our hands

Are the bold chickadees who have trained us

With a little call to open hands filled with seeds.

These wise winged ones bridge the gap

Between the forest dwellers

And we, the visitors.

Avian ambassadors announcing

“You are home!”