Joie de Vivre

There were three of you

Wooded and ensconced

Sharp and wary

And no way

To capture you

Disappointed

You sang high

And briefly

Breaking into chorus

In the midst of flights

For territory

Wooded and encroached

Obscured and aware

Of the order of things

Mine to see

Your browns and yellows

Foliaged and dulled

Are only mine

To see when you show

In quick movements

But when I looked

You were gone

And cold winds wintered in

Splintering habitats

So fastidiously keystoned

I rebuilt a rectangular fortress with

Westward windows arching

Saw diminished eleventh-month light

Illuminate inward ecologies

Collapsed under disunity

Then detritus covered the ground

Trophic levels disappeared

I had only myself to eat

I shrilled a self-elegy

Accompanied by birdsong

Lay under wind-blown leaves

Soothed by death scents

Reordered according to

Outward ecologies

Old niches filled with new species

New niches created

Your chorus reached me

I looked toward

But you were gone.