At the Winter Feeder
His quill doused dull by ice and cold, the cardinal hunched into the rough frost, green feeder but ate no seed. Through binocolo I saw festered and malnorished his beak, broken at the root. Then two: one blazing, one gray, rode the swirling weather into my vision and lighted at his side. Unhurried,as if possessing the patience of God, they cracked sunflowers and fed him beak to wounded beak choice meats. Each morning and afternoon the winter long, that odd threesome, that trinity of need, returned and ate their sacrement of broken seed. Poem by John Leax Rearranged by Aygaius.