Birds are in the Trees by Megan Windom

Birds are in the Trees by Megan Windom

Overhead there’s nothing but a flat blue,

devoid of a single cumulus puff

to indicate the winds aloft.

Instead, only the gently swaying trees

and square brick buildings produce protection

from the warm afternoon sun

Grass looks freshly mowed, with large green clumps

still lined up from the mower’s path.

A few white flowers.

They cluster in the grass, escaped from the

mower, or growing swiftly shortly after.

Birds are chirping in the trees.

Bushes grow tall, almost treelike themselves.

The branches twine around each other

where the tops of bushes meet the trees’ lowest limbs.

A pair of women sit on a bench across from me,

ceaselessly chatting

even as one spills her soda.

It leaves behind a shiny, uneven path

across the walkway curving through the grass,

past the street lamp that’s turned on.

That lamp seems absurd.

It’s bulb, a beacon in dark winter nights,

now humiliatingly dim.

What purpose could there possibly be

to wasting the electricity needed to light it

while the sun stands high?

Maybe it’s forgetfulness?

So much effort is made to create shelter from dark

and cold and wet

that when the finer days full of easiness

start to wend their way to becoming average

we simply don’t recall

why we made any effort to begin with.

Like the bicyclists who glide down the street

barely bothering to pedal

beyond what’s needed to keep them upright.

Rather than a rain driven dodge through

the mazes of hallways and trees,

even pedestrians loiter in the sun.

Birds and people are laughing and twittering

at each other.

Pink petals cluster together on tree branches.

They fall, following the slight breeze.

As they spin away from each other,

they look white instead of pink.

The stream that formed from the spilled soda

is already fading.

There are just two drying patches

in front of an empty bench.

They look like parched lake beds

on top of cement.

Something is going on in the trees,

the birds sing madly.