VISITORS

by Mary K O'Melveny


A bird’s nest perches on top of a drainpipe
that snakes down from our rooftop toward the deck.
Our arrival after months away has disturbed the peace
of newly hatched chicks who did not know sounds
of opening doors, windows or FM radio news.
Human voices add a heaviness to their air.

Mother Nature has not been idle in our absence.
Tulips and violets, pear and cherry blossoms,
pale green ferns uncoil like modern jazz dancers.
An electricity fills the atmosphere as if
a summer storm was on its way. Each point
of light a promise of survival.

Today, dear friends stop by to say hello.
Masked up, distanced. What a joyous two hours.
A Baltimore Oriole serenades us all
from the top of the apple tree. A blaze
of orange amidst newly leafed branches.
Like us, cautious, yet eager to be seen.


* * * * *

Mary K O’Melveny, a retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife in Washington DC and Woodstock, NY. Mary, a Pushcart Prize nominee, is author of A Woman of a Certain Age and MERGING STAR HYPOTHESES (Finishing Line Press 2018, 2020) and co-author of the anthology An Apple In Her Hand (Codhill Press 2019).