In the backyard, with indifferent abandon,
a holly bush leans against the fence.
An invitation that will be taken.
Within the protective dense thorny green foliage,
mom and dad Cardinal make a twig home.
Soon peeps announce a new families hatch.
Foraging with industry the male and female
endlessly fly to the yard garden grocery store.
The tomato horned worms do not survive.
It is an organic garden relying on benevolent help
from these talon red feathered creatures and good bugs.
Ravenous chicks doom the plant destroying worms.
A peek in the nest reveals two fluffy hungry babes
their open yellow rimmed beaks pointed skyward.
They are ravenous to any rustle of the branches.
Flashing dazzling colors, song birds dart about,
one of the benefits of planting a harvest of veggies.
Everyone benefits the bounty; birds and neighbors.
The family dogs seem to sense their unspoken duty
protectively lying in the shade beneath the nest branch.
Coming inside at nightfall they give up their guard watch.
Night darkness can become the indiscriminate evil hour for life,
when dark hides the skulking casual destroyers of homes.
The time of burglars, murders, the devils spawn, feral cats.
One of the neighbors daily feeds these treacherous felines,
in sympathy for their dispassionate wild primitive existence.
The cats have no morals, only a taste for baby birds.
©2013 Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 