My beat, these streets.
I walk and walk, but make no mistake – 
Mother Nature 
rules and reigns.

Two-faced, heartless and cold,
She smiles with ruby lips of velvety rose
while sending a hard frost to choke the irises.
Shall I spill her sinister secrets?
Do I dare divulge her dastardly doings?

It began in March, when I spotted during my rounds
evidence of Entering and Breaking,
a classic case, really.
Eggshells, pale blue and broken,
Littered the pavement soaked in early moning dew.
I turned to a robin hopping nearby and shrugged.
“Circle of life,” I said.
It hopped away.

April ushered in Nature’s darker side,
As I discovered when I heard the squawks of baby bird,
Helpless, trapped beneath its nest
Blown out of a small magnolia during a thunderstorm.
I watched its downy gray feathers shudder
as it cried out in confusion, perhaps even pain,
and I sighed.
“There’s nothing I can do for you,” I whispered.
I ran away.

Then Nature cast aside all pretense in May,
when I stumbled upon the scene of a vicious attack.
I slowed my run when I spotted a feather – 
giant, gorgeous, imposing.
A hawk’s striped feather lay ominously 
beside another empty nest,
tossed violently to the ground.
The remains of a baby bird lay lifeless in the front yard.
I looked away.

“Cruel mistress,” I cursed Mother Nature.
She cackled and strolled off,
Leaving a trail of pink peonies behind her.