Lucas Powers’ most recent poem to appear here was “December Advice” (December 2017)

Muga
By Lucas Powers

The smallest
Bird is
Picking at
The prickly
Ball hanging
From the smallest
Highest limb
Of the Japanese
Maple

It has no
Business being
That high
Little samurai
Bending the
Rubberband
Limb as far
As she will go

Will he fall
Or will he fly
Or continue
Pecking
Till branch break?

Everything is
Life and death
In February’s
False spring
And even I
Am clutching
This pencil in
My claw a
Little harder