birds

I took down the plastic cylinder-shaped feeder to clean and just obliviously wandered away without refilling and returning it to its rusty nail under the eaves. Maybe because I was thinking what a terrible plague would spread without proper cleaning and rinsing, and imagining if I was arrested I would be brought up on charges of spreading a deadly plague surpassing the infamous day when that wayward meteor stuck earth with flying spores shutting out all light and dropping allergy sensitive dinosaurs from sneezing. Then we'd have to start allllll over again. All blamed on my dwindling attention span.
A few sparrows landed nearby for brief seconds and swiveled their heads, others glided in to the rusty nail, hovering backwards like colorless hummingbirds. But what I missed most the two days the feeder was out of service in the shadow of the cement porch were those faithful kissing cardinals. No no not like a hilarious Monty Python sketch, but I mean when the girl waits patiently on the porch fence and the guy crushes the black sunflower shell and hops the inner morsel over to her and she turns and tilts her pale head and he mirrors her move perfectly and they meet even more natural than in the movies but without the benefit of sharing a string of spaghetti.