An Answer

For days you have wondered
who is eating the leaves in the garden

 
broccoli, lettuce, beans,
ripped to the stem

 
you imagine it could be
slug, deer, raccoon, or earwig

 
then, sitting quietly and not thinking much,
you see the sparrows, smudged yellow on the forehead

 
they move from plant to plant,
beak off tender leaves,
swallow with a quick pulse at the throat

 
and suddenly, you can’t begrudge them, any of them.
Not the birds or the slugs, not an errant earwig.

 
The rains are late again,
there is so little green to live on.