for Ali and Hannah
Just before a colony collapses, young adult bees populate
the hive. Listen: ordinary wings are beating the air.
Claim your inheritance here. What is built remains or
collapses. Look: a mulberry tree’s silvered leaves populate
air. Ice shelves thin, babies collapse at the border, the physics
of displacement. A line of waxwings flutters through air,
passes berries bill to bill. Listen for their lisping cries, find
nests in fields edging streams, swamps, suburban yards—
everywhere abundance! From what is built, unearth
your habitat, amid what collapses, your fruiting trees.