CHICKADEES
Ten degrees or less for a week,
Birch trees crack in the rock-black night,
but every morning there are Chickadees,
oblivious, tiny experts
working the merest possibility
of a seed, a stone-hard berry.
Perhaps only small birds
live quick as a hop and peck,
bright fluttering over old snow
and the dark sleep of bears.
Should cold ever gather
over me, may I also be
the genius of my own winter,
tough as Chickadees.