In a village by the wood

Jeremiah walks the evenings away.
He sports his socks and boots and his able brother.
He crosses the fence into the unworked steppe.
There he spies a yearling buck bounce between the bark
and thinks, "we aren't so different, you and I".
Then, when he gets cold he retracts to nap in his chair by the fire
while the staglet ranges ranges on.

On weekends, Carrie Jackson goes shooting for birds.
She blows on her birdwhistle and when they call back she picks them out.
The trees are quiet now - she says it's because there are no more wings to shoot,
since they are all folded into her book to show to whomever asks.
I often wonder if she's right or if she's left some silent perch intact.

Jean leads a giddy lab.
She taught him how to speak and shake.
She says he's a member of the family,
but he won't wear the smart little jacket that she tooks such care to sew.
It doesn't fit over his winter coat anyway.
Together they deter a frustrated raccoon from sorting wasted goods.

Gordon laughs and scorns the fat murder in the steeple.
They have no credit and so can't buy the bread they eat.
Since they can never join the labor to afford their rooftop homes,
the corvid tennents pay their rent with street art, white hair, and alarm.

A quartet plays an ode to humanity.
No thought escapes the bend of the string.
They talk and laugh and dance as people do.
Thinking gives way to feeling and feeling is spent by moving,
until the light is gone and only sleep remains.