NEIGHBOR'S GARDEN (a poem)

I came to pick up the vacation paper

And suddenly, I am on a safari.

Morning breezes usher out the haze,

Open stage for all winged creatures,

Black vulture and hummingbird,

Monarchs with Viceroy twin.

All around me, movement, like random, diving

leaves after an early autumn frost.

Lost among the Black-eyed Susans,

Pearl Crescents rise like a wave as the wind stirs.

A dragonfly charges me, defending new prey.

How odd to see the tables turned on a yellow jacket.

 There are few fragrances this late in summer,

just the heavy smell of heat rising.

Sounds of August music ebb and flow,

With background static of cicadas.

But there is no shortage of color-

Soaring, gliding,

             Fluttering, basking,

                            Launching and landing...

    ...I’d go deaf if I could hear their wings beat.

 Cindy Steffen - August 2009

All photos from Prairie Pond Woods