Scrabbling for the last of the blueberries
bearberries, crowberries, crab-apple –
anything left of the dying autumn
to stock up your more than mountainous frame
copper sheen in a slanting sun
soon ready to curl up in a
bomb of a ball in a den.
But the berries now shriveled slip through your claws
into the brown of your wintry fur
you comb your way in, thrust in your nose
it’s in there somewhere your berry
between hair and more hair in the crook of your arm.
How did it get there?
You slope off with a huff on the heels of your paws
hungry, hungry the king of the mountain
trumped by a berry.

Feature picture by Heather Cuthill on Flickr