Observing sparrows,
drab and puffed, pecking
at my homemade cakes of
suet and seed.

A squirrel climbs the feeder post
but will not touch the food itself
thanks to red pepper flakes
in the seed mix.

Squirrel skips about 
below the feeders, nipping up
bits of neutral, unseasoned
feed fallen from above.

The sparrows 
seem unbothered. Maybe
they even like the small fires
in their food. 

I should be
putting my talent into
saving the world,
unless this

does save the world;
perhaps I fret needlessly
that there is so much more
to be done. This is such 

a small thing, this feeding
and saving and replenishing
while not harming as I go.
I do not like thinking

it’s all I can do, but it might be.
I do not like thinking I am reduced
to rendering fat and making poetry;
would rather imagine myself gunning

and shouting, slicing and 
leading a charge. Instead
I wince at my pains, stay off my feet,
nurse my confusion and memorialize

all I once was
while the sparrows
eat, the squirrels eat, the cold
settles in

and the world 
goes on without me 
to stand and bar
its crushing way.