Earth Day ’20
I sneak a peak into the bird house
to see how the baby bluebirds are doing
for the third time in the last two decades
a coiled-up black snake meets my eyes,
it’s a cold morning and a cold truth,
mid-day the head appears,
later the body slowly slithers out,
at some time it leaves the scene of the meal,
taking its time to not make itself too obvious
to our aggressive red-shouldered hawk,
who seems to love to eat snakes,
and hunts often here,
a few years ago one of my students
got bitten by a copperhead nearer our house,
the black snake likes to eat copperheads, too,
the bluebirds eat the insects,
the black snake eats the bluebirds,
how elegant it would have been
for the hawk to eat the snake,
completing a loop.
by Henry H. Walker
April 22, ‘20
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