ContrariesYou sit on the front steps in love
with the little birds, the finches
& sparrows fidgeting from leafy cover,
not that they need you
cheering them on to eat the seed
at the feeders hung just for them—
sunflower, millet, a white sock of thistle;
but when the hawk lowers its broad
red shoulders and sits, alone,
on the limb of the cherry tree,
after the little birds, seeing it coming,
have scattered like
ifs and
whens,
you pull for the hawk, admiring
its heft, the turn of its head,
not to mention the unblenched eyes,
its black-banded tail. How could you not
root for this brown serenity lifting off,
grudgeless and oblivious to grudge?
Now the finches & sparrows are back,
with two chickadees, all astir,
flitting their soft agitation.
Once again you fall
for the little birds, their flutter
of
yeses quickening the air.
Susan Meyers***********
Susan Meyers is the author of Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006), winner of the SC Poetry Book Prize, the Brockman-Campbell Book Award, and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily, and other literary journals. Recent prizes include first place in the Yemassee and South Carolina Review poetry contests. She lives with her husband in the rural community of Givhans, South Carolina. ***********
:hi:
RL