Leaves That Move without A Breeze

By John I. Blair

Hunting through primordial trees
Ancestral Blairs
Saw opportunity or risk
In leaves that move
Without a breeze.

Today I do the same
Except it is not game I seek
Nor Indians I fear.

If a spear of goldenrod
Nods when the garden air is still,
It warns me rats may be about –
Rats that fatten nightly
On the birdseed I put out.

So I peer beyond my window,
Heed the slightest twitch,
And mark the spot.

That’s where I’ll site
The traps I’ve bought
And garner bodies, small and limp,
With which I can enrich the soil
And feed the gods that drove them there.

©2013 John I. Blair