My Neighborhood

by Kathy Weisfeld

Crows will cross the yellow line
Cleaning streets of carrion

Like the woman down the way
Raking leaves everyday

Sparrows rise from a horse field
Catching flies the dung heaps yield

Children, teens and dogs will flock
Voices heard way down the block

Cardinals, feathered in red
Live in pairs until one’s dead

Mr. Whistle likes to flirt
Blushing pink, I’m pert while curt

Vultures circle in the sky
Swooping down when prey they spy

Curtains move when I walk by
Mrs. Voila likes to pry

Wrens build nests by door and eave
Chattering until I leave

Sometimes someone just stops by
Staying so long, I might cry

Thrushes sing their melody
Flutelike voices rhapsody

Ms. Aurora likes to sing
In our houses, ears will ring

Indigo buntings come, go
Where they live I do not know

Well dressed Jehovahs knock, hope
Traveling up the road’s slope

Titmice chatter to their friends
Calling forth day’s start and end

Friends phone or visit me
Talking over coffee, tea

People, birds, home and wood
My eccentric neighborhood

Kathy Weisfeld lives in the South Toe Valley.

About My Neighborhood — This poem was in response to an assignment to write with counted syllables, meter, and/or rhyme. I saw the crows and sparrows, and 14-syllable couplets flew into my head. The rhythm came much more easily than I had expected. The birds are real, the people flights of imagination.

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