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Nature Inspiration

By Aaron Suranofsky

Leaning back in my chair,
from a sterile white word doc
bleached of ideas.

I breathe cramped bedroom,
scrunching the empty page of my brain,
and blow out lip-funneled scrap

that strums a ceiling corner web,
like a mouse's guitar strings
lightly resettling their neutral.

Stitched float staying strong
weeks after I swept its seamstress–
legs buttoned up, off my desk.

Would she be satisfied
that her embroidery still hangs?
The intricate emblem she lived.

I rack my chin on my knuckles,
stretching my sequestered thoughts
into the blue past my window

blocked, by a mini bramble of bird's nest;
weed-tied twig-tangle basket.
Still, it sits on my windowsill, without a robin chick

peeling its lungs for food
from parents with beaks wrapped in worm.
Only the bundle tagged with a Twix wrapper, crinkled 

by the air guiding those once-babies in their glide
somewhere, dipping wind lanes. Do they remember
their childhood home, and know it’s still here?

Brought back to my laptop,
I find these words pixeled to the page,
pleasantly surprised.

Except for the cricking of chipmunk claws
grinding tunnels mazed of my house,
and holes scrambled through my thoughts.
Chipmunk 4 by Pat Tolerico

Filed Under: Nature and the Environment Feature

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