Field Birds After the Rain

Lately I've been watching
the birds, the way the juncos
seem to know my home,
every stretch of the deck
railing they claim, the way they turn
toward me at the kitchen window
or are they trying to see
themselves?

Look, three sparrows
on the sagging wet wire of patio lights,
how they sway and hold on
to such a narrow perch.

They welcome the weight
of water. They have
their own atmosphere,
their own moon.

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Sarah Dickenson Snyder has written poetry since she knew there was a form with conscious line breaks. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019). Recently, poems appeared in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. She has been a 30/30 poet for Tupelo Press, nominated for Best of the Net, the Poetry Prize Winner of Art on the Trails 2020, and a 2021 Finalist and Semi-Finalist in the Iron Horse Literary Review’s National Poetry Month contest. She lives in the hills of Vermont.