I’m wondering why the blue spruce grows
in towns but the black spruce is happier in bogs,
all spruce, and not one black or bluer than the other.
And here comes the tribe of pigeons again,
as afraid of me as any tanager or vireo
but willing to live with their terror for the food it brings.
And the cat struts proudly in from the back yard
with a mouse flailing in its jaw, flying that fleshy flag
of what it must know by now is sickening to me.
And, it being vacation, my wife is watching that soap opera
again, and she hasn’t seen an episode in seven months
but that’s no bother to her just to me.
Red spruce sprouts in rocks, white spruce by the water,
Norway spruce behind the condominiums,
so much spruce, so many falling needles.
I’ve overheard arguments in restaurants,
read in newspapers of someone murdering their lover,
even seen some bloody scraps on sidewalks.
How do people live together? The spruce have
their ways. Pigeons dwell among us more than with us.
Cat and mouse try it but I see all the time how that ends.
I’m curious about that soap opera.
Are those in love back in April
as passionate, as fervent, now it’s November?
My wife says Sean is being played by another actor now.
So that’s how the marriage survives. Keep the same people
but replace the actors.
John Grey is an Australian born poet and US resident since the late seventies. He works as a financial systems analyst. His work has been recently published in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, and Albatross, with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock, and REAL.
Photo by Robb North.
