When The Leaves Are Gone

In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle! I know of no redeeming qualities in me but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I have to fall back on to this ground. - Thoreau

all the leaves are gone

trees stand naked

you don't see the nest

you don't look up

you don't know what's in the air

the chicks have long since hatched and taken flight

you say, "huh?, that can't be right"

"i'm sorry, i didn't see it because my long, black hair was in the way"

birds lay eggs and bees spin honey

you made money

you simply don't care

you won't play fair

one day you'll know how it feels

when you're standing alone on the street corner

in nothing but your underwear

Author's Note

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?” - Thoreau