From a metal measuring cup, you

sprinkled seeds on every second paving stone 

– black oil sunflower, shriveled corn kernels, 

unshelled peanuts – along the path 

between our house and the canal. Life followed 

through the earth-smoke, like a private magic 

you conjured from the sky, the trees, the ground. 

The squirrels always arrived first, 

followed by the persistent woodpecker, 

while the blue jays watched from on high, 

dive-bombing the whole peanuts

and cleverly hiding them in the grass. 

The squirrels staked their claims without incident,

turning the peanuts in their agile hands 

like Rubik’s Cubes, looking for a way in,

as the mourning doves took shifts, 

displacing one another on the stones 

like tag-team wrestlers, until the crows hopped in, 

angry over something, and spoiled the party. 

Often a wary cardinal waited demurely 

in a tree, or a rabbit or two in the grass, 

making sure it was safe first. This was the daily 

feeding, the private nature of the order you created. 

What happened next, we did not expect: 

The squirrels, unable to tell time, 

began arriving early, scrambling too-eagerly 

over the porch screen, sometimes bringing friends.  

Then the woodpecker started its tapping 

before dawn, like a prisoner rattling a cup 

on the bars of its cage. Even the shy rabbits 

showed prematurely, peering in 

the porch screen like curious tourists. 

And so, we adjusted, beginning our days 

with theirs, with coffee and a breaking of bread. 

The world you created we inhabited for a while,

like parents, providers of a new order. 

And it would have continued that way 

– for years, no doubt – if illness 

had not callously swooped in, as it does.

It’s eighteen months now since I stopped 

the feeding. No one climbs on the porch screen 

anymore, no one taps at the gutter. 

They’ve all gone back to the wild, 

back to the natural order of things. 

But I still wonder sometimes

if they ever feel nostalgic 

for those days, as I do.

If, having known it once, 

they ever privately yearn

for the return of magic.

----------------------------------------

James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist, and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Washington Post, The Adirondack Review, Door Is A Jar, The Miami Herald and elsewhere. He is a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia.