The ruddy English Sparrow
roughed the sunflower seeds,
scattering them around the ground,
selecting his dinning pleasure
at his leisure,

when came the august Cardinal
in clerical procession,
his scarlet-winged brothers
and shy sisters,
genuflecting behind,

startling the skittish Sparrow
who fled to his sanctuary
high in the old oaks.

The Cardinals claimed the feeding ground
by papal fiat,
lifting up to the suet grids
to peck at their supper.

Suddenly,
like lightning,
came the Thrasher,
who, with wild abandon,
disrupted the saited Cardinals,
tossing seed-shells, dirt, straw and grass
in pure protestant fury,
showering the sedate prelates.
Cardinals scattered in a catholic-panic
leaving their eucharistic meal,
now wholly profaned,
spread out before the Thrasher.
But not for long.

Soon the squawking flash of a Flicker
unnerved the gorging Thrasher,
who fled to a pine-tree-top
in a cowardly, un-raptoric manner.

The victorious Flickers murderous beak
shredded the suet blocks
to his gluttonous satisfaction-
until

he paused to hear,
far off in the woods,
the screech of the Pileated Woodpecker,
Master of their forest
(as had been
his distant tyranasaurus cousin).

The Flicker ceased his culinary expedition,
considered his sudden precarious position,
and, swallowing the remains
of his aviary indignation,
flitted and fluttered away,
abandoning the banquet to his
soon-arriving, un-defeat-able
nemesis….

While high in the white mists,
the hungry Harrior Hawk,
in circular flight,
caught sight
of a red-flash-movement-below,
and
dove…

In Heaven,
her wings folded in tense observation,
the Recording Angel heard the cry,
witnessed the blood-spray fly,
opened her golden-book,
altered the census,
and
sighed.