Sometimes making the soup
is enough for comfort
when the sky is buttermilk
and pigeon and the twigs
are burned matchsticks
backlit by the sun.

But grey squirrels have no
predators in this
uncertain weather.
They ring the bark
for sweetness,
ransack the woodland.

There’s a seed on a wing
on a hill, where it begins
or ends, continues. Life,
again. And I want
to say, turn back, turn back!
We were all good people.