‘Shorebirds’ & ‘Nesting’

Paweł Grajnert is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist working in Poland and the US.

Shorebirds

Where the Pier Park juts 

into the lake

at a right angle, 

The breakwall catches 

the longshore current.

Logs, vegetation, debris

Pile with muck.

When sandbars reach 

the surface, grasses 

Grow.  Cover your head

as you walk by.  

A red-winged blackbird 

Emerges from cattails and reeds.

The stripes on his shoulders 

he wears like badges,  

One thick and red, one thin and yellow.

He gives you a quick stare

as if to say, 

Get off my lawn,

short warning before he darts 

at the center of your 

Forehead.  He doesn’t know

this tangle of 

brambles & grasses

Wasn’t always there.

Nesting

The woodpecker taps its name 

in Braille, seeking grubs.

Fungi work the holes 

for months

& the bird comes back

to finish boring 

out the damp soft wood.  But it’s not 

finished, cause the fungi don’t 

stop.  The wood

dampens more, the hole

widens and widens

til it’s too big.  Nuthatches set

pats of mud

around the opening to narrow it

& keep out 

the rest.  Meanwhile the woodpecker

bangs out the next  

hole up     or

down from 

the last one.

& so, and so.

Each hole decays

til one fine evening 

they merge & owls

move in.  When wood ants

find the rotted holes, 

they gnash it into nests

that soak with honeydew

of aphids.  Fungi spores catch 

& bloom & reinforce the nest 

like fiberboard.

S.D. Dillon has an MFA from Notre Dame and lives in Michigan. His poetry has appeared recently in Bloodroot, The Phare, MORIA, Antler Velvet, #Ranger, Canary, and The Shortlist: Best of BarBar 2024, and is forthcoming in Bacopa Literary Review, Southland Alibi, Rundelania, and elsewhere. He can be found on Instagram at @sddillon50.