Sweetboi

 

February 16, 2021

M has been reading my poems to A, so I decided to send a copy of The Glacier’s Daughters, being the most kid-friendly of them all. The first copy I chose was one with “Tom, Merry Christmas 1990 scrawled across the title page.” It’s grief to find one of your books in a second hand store, especially one inscribed to your best friend. Didn’t send that one. Concentrate the grief here, where it’s accustomed.  

Dawn oddly and vividly golden. Day, bitter cold.

Sweetboi and his mate are building a nest in Kelly’s slippery elm. I’m jealous, though that tree–immense and overlooking all– is right for them. They spent the morning carrying beakfulls of sticks and grass to the site. In the afternoon Sweetboi brought his bride over to meet me. They took places a few yards apart in my tree wall beside the drive, both screaming, which I took for hawk introductions. Electrifying to have two great birds of prey screaming at you from a few feet away. I do see how cults begin. It would take the smallest step of the imagination to turn them into gods, their presence in my yard a visitation, my tossing pork neckbones to them a sacrifice. 

Geese honking overhead in unusual numbers.