by Stewart Alter
She had not fed the birds for days
And missed the cardinal in the muddy yard,
The way he dropped down to the earth ablaze,
And slipped back up into the fog unmarred.
The more drab the day, the more color lent,
For he showed no signs of his search for seeds,
No traces marking a desperate descent
In a life consumed serving basic needs.
Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.