A hawk flies into a tall pine
followed by an angry crow.
A towhee screes across the street
while I walk down the hill
from the neighborhood
into the woods
where everything is filling in
with new shades of green.

The mallards are in the creek
where I stop to sketch the trees.
It’s an uneventful session today,
drawing impatiently in the woods.

When I cross the road
from the trail head to go home
I feel my last chance
slipping away from me.

I walk under the freeway
and hear a Red-winged Blackbird
for the first time here.

Did they just move in to this swale
built between I-5 and Barbur
when the cattails
became tall enough to perch on?

It’s such a tiny piece of wetlands
abbreviated by the street
that leads back to my dry wall cube.
A townhouse that is suddenly more
than an address on an avenue.
It is a place just north of the swale
and west of the creek
in the nearness of wings.