I’m starting to like this poem i wrote about the old man across the street, whose eyes i often meet, as he cleans the blue birdbath by hand daily!

the old man across the street
hand-cleans the robin’s egg blue bird bath
out of habit each day.
his wife is elsewhere now.
he has lived forever already
and nearly died many times.
We relate in that, and wave
or gaze occasionally at one another in mutual silent respect; and
the pecans still fall this season
into that bird bath-making
their own type of syrupy mess
which we alone are meant to clean by hand-
and the squirrels only take half
the bounty, the rest is his!
And ours, together, somehow.