White-breasted Nuthatch

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White-breasted Nuthatch
By Julie L. Moore

I'm into ornithology now--
it's the poetry's fault the birds

zoom into this line
or that, and I don't want to say,

generically, bird--no anonymous
fowls for me, no!--I want to write

Yellow-rumped Warbler or Scarlet Tanager
or here, this one, White-breasted Nuthatch.

Ah, yes, that one can skip along the trunk of a tree
like a stone across a pond. And it can hammer

at seeds and peck for bugs while its hind nail
digs into bark, balancing

its plush body on the primal edge
of wonder.