Here's a fun fact or two
about its life,
about its bulbous rear end,
sprouting an elegant
fan-shaped, snow-white ruff
of silken stuff,
like half of a dancer's tutu.
How it crowds together with nine
hundred and ninety-nine
or so of its kin
to smother every inch
of a young beech branch,
and suck its sap---
beaks in, butts up
in the air and shaking, shaking
the dying branch alive,
alive, in a white wave
of tiny fluttering fans.
How there's no breath
of wind on the woodland path,
and the hiker stands
bewildered, looking,
lost in their frantic silence.
(Tar River Poetry, V.59: no.2 (2020))
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