Time’s Capsule

Time’s Capsule
Daniel Pettee

This day’s thought is prone to travel where
the breezes rustle through the copse of trees
that drop their curling, venous leaves
like vanished dreams on the rippling stream
below, around which squirrels scoot.

She sits in silence on the redwood deck,
Enveloped by the choiring of the birds,
squinting in the waning sunlight,
glancing sideways through the branches
that twine like crafted wreaths…

The tabby chatter-shivers as it sees
the sparrows swooping downward to the feeders
positioned like crossed stations all along
the clutch of cantilevered decks
skirting the woodland’s angular edge…

Late afternoon, and the red-bellied
woodpecker revs his beak to tympani,
spreading punctuation on the railings
in his rhythmically relentless
search for sustenance…

The cat’s shrill urgency, the graceful
swoop and sweep of the birds,
the woman’s easy, errant mind –
all connect in that moment as the day’s
droll dialogues endure in solemn silence…



A native New Englander, Daniel Pettee currently operates his own freelance writing business in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His poems have been published in a wide range of publications including Chicago Review, Texas Review, The Old Red Kimono, The Lyric, Evansville Review, and Poem.