The Mobbing of a Bluejay

While I stand in the green functions
of the back yard, silent, except for the frictions
scraped by the clouds that promise not rain,
but torrent, a gaunt bluejay peels into an apple
tree and a harness of robins descends to fury
it quickly away. I see this and the remains
of nettles I cut yesterday, limp, like old
rags that refused to plug a wound.
And as I stand here, mute in this summer
violence, mute as robins re-establish
their terror of such blue and hungry things,
re-establish that where they nest is theirs
alone. Somewhere, beyond the thicket
of all this noise and the drones of mowers
unworried, the spine of delusion breaks
like a twig, and the rot at the heart of it all
burns into my eyes, both savage —
both savage and harshly revealed.

Image: Jonnelle Yankovich on Unsplash