In My Backyard
--for Billy Collins
Attempting a spring day’s meditation
reading, drowsing, the birds all a chitter.
Then the neighbor gets caught up
in yet another project: buzz saw on loud
thump goes the cut wood
–the only land on the block
to go down in value.
Another neighbor, a crew cut tough
blowing feathers around the yard
with a leaf blower set on high.
Well, somebody was high.
Trucks back and forth,
kids screaming, planes overhead,
dragging the air basso profundo.
The birds persist, despite.
Then the Landscape Doctor arrives
across the street, big, noisy hose,
spraying the trees with God-knows-what.
Five minutes later a little fly shows up
–a pollinator, a beneficial insect
but it’s writhing from the poison
so I squashed it.
That fly ruined my day.
Published in A New Ulster
