ROBERT FROST WALKS THROUGH MY BACKYARD

Robert Frost walks through my backyard
on an evening when snow should be falling,
looks for a sunset bird in winter.

His tracks trail through patches of snow
towards a hillside thaw
and the sway of a young birch.

He walks across grass, gnarled brown
with the lingering crispness of winter,
and stops at my bird feeder, empty with neglect.

He stands quiet in a host of whirling wings
summoned from respite and roost.
Junco, jay, siskin, finch swirl

like feather ghosts around his white crest.
He holds out the stub of a pencil, invites
a one-legged chickadee to listen to a poem

about blueberries the size of his thumb.
Then he pinches flannel sleeves shut
around cold fingers and steps

into the shadow of a dwarf spruce.
He hesitates, smiles, then bends
to pick snowberries from my garden

and high-bush cranberries from a hedge
where poppies bloom in summer.
He puts them in a tuna can and hides it

in a tangle of honeysuckle vine.
I watch him watch cardinals come scarlet
into a winter Eden.

He reaches into his pocket,
tosses sunflower, thistle, and corn;
sees mourning doves bare the ground

as shadows cloister night.
Then he nods a meeting and passing
as he lumbers through my berry patch

into the pasture toward popple and pine
to rake leaves from Karberg's spring
or perhaps to walk in winter in the woods.

Jeffrey Johannes