A male and female cardinal sitting on an evergreen tree, an image found on pinterest.com.

 He Heard Her Calling

The red-coated cardinal
perches himself on a pine limb,
heavily laden with new fallen snow.

Black-masked, this Lone Ranger
from the crisp winter's wood
bounces merrily from branch to branch.

His lifetime companion sings
a most complex melody from afar,
signaling her need for nourishment.

Hurriedly, he goes here and there,
collecting  a variety of seeds and insects
for the joy of his life in the wild.

Back at the nest from whence she sang,
the predominantly pale brown female
is fed from the beak of her bright red lover.

And so it is, with one small couple's
daily struggle for survival, in a land
where a bounty of food awaits the worker.

©Copyright 2016 By David Lee Thompson