Sheltering in place has its rewards,
and he prefers it, having lived
a long time alone,
a cabin in the woods
his undisputed territory,
built from discards and remainders
with those same hands when young,
his demesne where he evolves,
silent and attentive among trees
in the foreglow of the year
unique to March, an open, even light
in elevated overcast, undisturbed,
where memory begets memory
and a man can turn more deeply
into himself, an internal migration,
each day nearer the western horizon,
a sane way to live, keeping pace
with the seasons, the resident birds
quick to the feeder, he hears their claws
on the porch post, he hears the wind
in bare crowns, he almost hears
yesterday's rain
rising in the strong gray trunks
as fear of sickness
spreads across the human earth,
and the grating of a nuthatch annuls it.
