HOLED UP

To build a home a year in advance. Unruffled by the glances that imply idiocracy. Repeatedly taking it on the beak. Choosing a cactus of all places as your “tree.” Building a nest when her pregnancy test has yet to show a plus. Let them fuss and taunt your every effort to construct something that’s just left to dry out in this sun. But your time was not wasted. You waited, holed up for weeks on end, until a miracle would send what seemed but a dream a year ago. And the scoffers have nothing to show for their words. Birds will scramble to make a home in the bramble, pecking on anything they can find, but nothing will be water tight that was not built in foresight. A tapping frenzy. A desert flood. A refuge constructed below and above covering over the fears for the life held up in your cactus suite. Close your eyes dear ones and sleep. 

Gila woodpecker in his saguaro cactus home, built a year before the move-in date.

12” x 12” mixed media painting (acrylic and paper) on cradled panel