Abecedarian With Chickadee, With Sharp-Shinned Hawk by Ronda Piszk Broatch

Abecedarian With Chickadee, With Sharp-Shinned Hawk

A chickadee on the trellis
begs into its reflection, knows it
can arouse a body still

drowsy with clouds to fill two feeders
empty of seed. What more might it
find, say the impossible was reversed, that

glass could liquify and our tiny bird
hovering there, might finally fly
inside without colliding,

just glide between the hard particulate,
kaleidoscopic skin of silicate sand, fig
leaves and roses, a moment of magical

motion, secret passage into
new and uncharted time and space, while
on the other side of glass the cat and I,

peaceful in blankets, slowly breathe into the
quietude of a cold clear morning, vapor
rising from my mug, her exhalations

steaming the pane, scent of biscuits
teasing a little hunger to the surface. Set to
upset the status quo, chickadee sees a

vastness she means to penetrate, a
world away from sharp shinned hawk, its
xanthous eyes, to fly into the garden of

yearning, a place where black seed spills by
zillions, where my cat and I simply watch
and abide.

by Ronda Piszk Broatch

Twitter: @RondaBroatch
Instagram: @Ronda.Broatch.Photos

Editor’s Note: This poem isn’t quite narrative, and isn’t quite philosophy, but contains elements of both as the speaker muses on the nature of perspective via expertly applied imagery.