For 12 months solid
I pleaded with the birds:
Asked them to please visit
my lovely balcony
I bought all the feeders
loaded them up with seed
filled up a bowl with water
so they could splash with little wings
After 12 months I gave up
I saw them taunt me from the trees
I conceded that perhaps it wasn’t my fault
maybe they just had better places to be
I tended instead to my flower beds
– the plants don’t have wings so
though they might not thrive at least
they couldn’t have the choice
to fly away from me
I watched the flowers come and go,
let the weeds take over in between
It is not much of a balcony garden
things seem to die more often than
they grow
but at the moment I have thyme,
some strawberry flowers
and green leaved potatoes.
Three years pass in this
dying, growing, not-much-of-a balcony garden
when it happens
the birds finally show
They come for seeds and slugs
and flowers
and I suppose some kind of living atmosphere
I eventually fostered,
without even having to know