At the refuge this windy fall morning
the pollinator garden is still ripe
and humming with honey and bumble bees
hovering above the aster blossoms.
A bee box, with its small holes, gives shelter
for the solitary, mellow kind—
sweat, mason, digger, and many more.
The boardwalk is covered with pine needles
evergreen’s annual partial loss
while ash and hickory, maple and birch
are tinged with revealed pigments—
the dominance of chlorophyll waning.
The forest, however, holds close
many of its avian secrets.
The few we see are cherished—whether migrants
or locals: Nashville Warbler, Gray Catbird, Eastern Bluebird
diverse in color and shape and habit.
It is the essence of nature’s striving,
its strength unveiled—not in the power of one
but the vigor of all that is manifold.
By Roxanne Bogart
Roxanne E. Bogart is a wildlife biologist and writer, whose poems have appeared in The Silkworm, The Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Burlington Poetry Journal, and Poetry Quarterly. She spends her personal time hiking in the woods and meadows of Western Massachusetts, where she gathers inspiration and momentum for her writing. She is a member of the International League of Conservation Writers, the Academy of American Poets, and the Florence Poets Society, and lives in Amherst, MA with her family. Find out more about Roxanne Bogart at roxannebogart.com