Night wraps its dark blanket

around us and out here by the pond

some prepare to sleep 

and others to awake.

I’ll soon join the nighttime sleepers.

It won’t be long before morning

when Knox, the cats, and the birds

awake requesting to be fed.

JDG

Scratchy call of crow,

bluejay’s fluttering wings –

Just to be here

is enough.

JDG

Over and over that tree shoot

ascends between the boards

of my porch, and over and over

I say “no” in a very cutting way.

I don’t know which one of us

will have the final say,

but I sense that tree shoot

has some inside knowledge

from an undisclosed source.

JDG