“Chickadee”

Two swans perform a magic act 

behind a beaver dam.

Now you see them, now you don’t.

The glowing gold of sunset nestled to horizon.

Summer’s sweat chilled our necks, signaled time

walk back,

past the majestic white birch 

lounging like a Mata Hari against the elder elm. Glowing roots mixed dizzy into earth. 

Mom limped ahead, afraid of the coming night.

 I strayed behind and waited for a sign.

Then came the quiet flutter 

chickadee wings. 

One by one they leaped from seed to seed. 

Whatever one had missed the next one snapped 

like grape pickers in California fields. Except 

these chickadees picked seed for no one 

but themselves. 

Maybe because I stood still and quiet 

they paid me no mind. 

They leapt from the right, pod to pod,

 crossed the trail so close I could feel 

small wing’s wind on skin,

on to the pods to the left towards the water,

to the magic of the swans. 

Acrobatic little balls of fluff, sometimes upright bouncing on the tightrope of a stem, 

sometimes upside down,

snatching sweetest treats of a pod bowing down back to the earth from where it first sprung.

I stood in twilight’s breeze, listened 

to the distant stories: 

birds settling down for the night, 

the mixing of the water, 

the trills of frogs, 

winged hum of bugs, and, in between, 

soft landings of the chickedees leap to 

leap in line. 

It’s all you give for priceless thrill:

wait in stillness and silence,

the earth knows what to do.

—Emily Romano