The Men of my Family

[PoetryAndPhysics]

Three red ribbons flapping from my window:
father taped them so woodpeckers stay clear
of our aged, voluptuous plywood.
Woodpeckers are only here because a beloved bough
off the family tree cracked in two;
a minor devastation of Hurricane Sandy.
In fact, possibly a net benefit:
the peckers made a nest in that tree's cavernous arm.

Grandfather alive was just as clever.
Gangs of marauding Brooklyn pigeons were kept at bay
with a swarm of metallic spikes on the balcony:
no avian shits round those parts no more.
After he died, we found lists of numbers in a drawer:
theorizing the lottery.

What legacy will I leave for my descendants when I have them?
How will those unborn look up and say
“Father loved breathing the attic,
his sidekick a dapper gray parrot called Alex
that never quite mastered arithmetic.
How we loved him.”