Tess Gallagher: "Choices"

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don't cut that one.
I don't cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

for Drago Stambuk


"Choices" by Tess Gallagher, from Dear Ghosts. © Graywolf Press, 2006.

Photograph: "Empty Nest," by Kimberly Adams (originally black and white).