Collins Inspired Poems

As I Sit Here Watching My Wife Fill the Bird Feeders

The snow blows bitingly in the bitter north wind,
Last night, a forecast for blizzard conditions,
Snow, cold, wind, from the north–and nowhere else.
She scurries about, this redhead from Northern Europe

Making the world a better place for little birds, housefinches, sparrows, winter birds.
Nature is my two-year-old daughter’s coos and crys, as my coffee brewing in the corner of the kitchen.

An American flag flutters in the blowing snow, hanging courageously on the corner of his garage. A singular bird alights on the feeder,
And I type on my word processor at the kitchen table.
“Your daughter went into your underwear drawer and put a pair of boxers over her head!”

A fire is lit in the living room
And the thumb of my old birddog’s tail raps quietly but assertively on the carpeted floor.
Where are we? Really?
A place where hope is alive. A nasty winter storm. Fifteen-below tonight.


Convulsions

With the arrival of our baby-sitter
My wife invites me out to breakfast.
No matter that this is her scheduled time to work
and I am sick, absent from work.

Out to breakfast we go.
The air is warm with a tinge of spring in it.
More than a tinge really, a heavy dose,
and the feeling of warmth and the freedom of

The two of us being babyless for a moment
Brings on ecstasy. Movement.
The smell of fresh blueberry pancakes and greasy bacon.
A breakfast restaurant with only the two of us by the window.

Morning. Sharing. The moment is as fresh and natural as the
warm spring-like air.
The snow-melted water in the street I hear and feel under my shoes.
Really, we should go home now. Return. We both have work to do.

Me, with deadlines, beginning to panic. Negative emotions that constrict
my efforts more than help.
What kind of work makes us procrastinate? Brings on stress and anxiety?
We go anyway. Walking the streets of a neighborhood and looking at houses.