Down the Shadow-tainted Road

Her fingers rake through
the fresh black earth.
Grainy sand digs into her nails
She scoops the aroma of rhubarb,
to the side.

And knows so well-
the touch of beets
Back arched, aching, kneeling for eternity
Thinking, thinking, thinking,
of her home in Punjab -
her piece of heaven.

The shade grants little comfort,
and her feet sink deeper,
into the soft dirt
Every tomorrow -
these imprints will be revisted,
under the same trees.

Dreaming of a bell's bright ringing,
from, the schoolyard days
She wanders,
Arduously,
Down the shadow-tainted road.

Nature diary #7

6.30.2011

The Perfect Home

         Today I keep seeing a chickadee of some sort that keeps going into a hole in the tree and coming out with small strips of wood in its beak.  It drops the wood onto the ground and continues going into the hole.

          I figure that it is trying to make the space in the hole bigger so tat it can build a nest in there.

          By the end of the day, piles of woodchips are scattered on the sidewalk...I wonder how it would be like to live in a place like that--especially if I were a bird.  I suppose that it would be more adequate and sheltering than the classical nest on the fork of a branch.  Then again, it might be more stuffy.

          I really do wonder sometimes...