I got up early this morning

to visit my garden.

A baby bunny

nibbled the native bushes

planted by Jennifer.

It was Jen’s idea to return indigenous plants

to my neighborhood.

A small brown bird,

the common kind,

bounced between the fuchsia and pink colored peonies,

He sampled an ant here

and a caterpillar there.

Then, without a warning,

a yellow goldfinch,

dressed in his solstice suit,

bright as a wedding,

swooped in to land on the purple catnip.

It was too limp to hold his perfect body,

even though he weighed

the equivalent of only 10 fingernail clippings.

He kept slipping off,

but even then he persisted,

long after I would have given up and

moved on to the emerging cornflowers.

It was fun watching the life in my own microcosm

until I remembered that climate change was real

and the flowers and animals already knew it better than I.

They travel 11 miles north every decade,

to catch a little relief.

As the goldfinch struggled to land on the purple catnip,

and the tiny bunny chewed the flox greens,

and the brown bird pecked at last season’s deadheads,

I envied the animals and plants moving on without protest.

I envied the climate change deniers

still enjoying their gardens.