They are all, she says—the ash and
black walnut, leaves tinged with gold,
the tiny frogs, sending their song into
the first warm April evening,
the owl who once nested far back in
a stand of trees (now gone, red ground
laid bare by men with machines),
and these girls, who gather beneath
her window after school, loving and
hating each other in turn, playing
at life with all the self-importance
of minor politicians, those paper wasps
nesting under the back-porch, and
that rusty-brown warbler, who cocks
her striped head to check on the calico
cat lounging in the patch of sun just
inside the door—They are all, she says,
my daughters, gathered ‘round.
(c) 2019, by Hannah Six
Image: USFWS (CC BY 2.0)
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