Don’t show me one big square box of blue sky
framed by window, doorway
deeper robin’s egg blue, deeper than turquoise
cloudless
that appears after gale
hurricane.
I need more.

I’d rather see cracks in that sky
maps of khaki branches
swaying or still,
naked throbbing garnet red waiting for the sun
or leafed in thick olive green —
this is the squirrel highway!

Show me gray boughs that cut blue skies like
elephant knees,
baby elephant trunks shoved about in the high breeze
Where winter buds soften
waiting for the spring sun to say
Ready–Set–Go!

She cut down the squirrel highway in favor of her garage,
roughshod roof.
I’ll never see another squirrel nurse her baby there again,
Or crested night heron stare at me in contest in my bedroom.
Mourning doves still sun themselves on the roof
and seem aloof to the sharp shinned hawk that favors them.
Their down smooth. Flat. Threadbare when she’s done with them.

Robins peck my window frantically trying to get in
but I know they belong in the elephant-wrinkled boughs,
dropping down, unlike any other bird I have ever seen,
like Buzz Lightyear,
falling — with style —
to the green.