99poems/fern

It seems
all year
I sit at my
desk and watch:
the tangle of fern
growing up
the neighbor’s oak,
the car shed
two streets up,
these scrubby trees
I study through
the seasons.
And the bottle
brush, its blooms
turned the color
of drying blood,
so fast they withered
from the fiery red
that called
the orioles,
the tanagers
with their
matching heads,
the ruby-throated
humming birds,
glistening like sequins
on an evening dress,
as they sipped
the morning’s
nectar.

6/14/99