A Poem

At the End of the Seven-Year War

It happened the same day
The hormonal birds went to war —
The incautious finch beaking the raven,
The four wings in a pinwheel flare.

Only just morning, and the day,
Because it had been fought for,
Lived.

Later the false onions were driving
Pickets up through the sedum
On my side of the flowering viburnum
That is the wall between us,
And I gave this my attention,
Unaware of you on your side,
Attending, too.

It went like this — sun between leaves,
Earth between fingers — until you said,
The robin has finished her nest.
The first words you have spoken to me
In seven years.

I opened the branches of my viburnum.
You opened yours.
The air came through.