nests

[just mercedes]

Hi Anne, and welcome. I'm on the other side of the equator, so it's autumn here - still a Spring poem is always welcome! I made a few notes. You've had advice already about punctuation, so I'll leave that out.




Outside the back window, across the alley
the food coop’s blue recycle barrels I like the particulars
loaded with knocked-down materials is there a better word than 'materials'?
are a regular Home Depot
for the local birds.

Flying and swooping above the rot Not both - I know there's a difference between flying and swooping, but you'll  have to find another way than these words.
and decay, they were a flurry of life 'rot and decay' ditto
throughout the dead cold of winter
before the last of dropped freezer truck ice
had finally melted into the asphalt. Can you get rid of a few 'the' in this stanza? Is it too picky to say that ice doesn't melt into asphalt?


Before green began poking through the gray cement
cracks, their beaks plucked loose I don't like this line break, or the image of unattached beaks.
burlap and twine from the piles,
the warp and weft woven into arborvitaes
across from second story windows.

To warm and feather our homes,
we humans scavenge too,
from West Elm to farm field flea markets
for the smoothest bed sheets, the comfiest couch,
a vintage mirror.

Now that the Flowering Crabapple blossoms
block the alley view, we open windows and peek out
from our cozy creations, smell the spring air
and join the birds chirping
in concert with the tulips breaking ground. Almost synesthesia here but it feels a little clumsy

I like the movement in your poem, from a focus on something in the window, out to West Elm and farm fields, and back again to the ground, watching a tulip appear. I like the way you compare us to birds; there's an unstated acknowledgement in your poem that everything alive works together. It was interesting to me that you wrote of the birds, over a period of time, rather than the blossoms which have just appeared. As if you know the blossoms will soon vanish, but the birds, and you, will still be there.

Thanks for posting this - I enjoyed seeing the scene through your eyes.