Like a Nuthatch

What wouldn’t you give
for that peanutty feast –
something of your shyness
at the very least?

For you have valor,
obvious in your stance,
blue-gray caped crusader
eyes fixed in a glance.

Long-billed and short-tailed,
you observe from your perch,
impatient for my hand
to shorten your search.

While head over ‘heels’
you see nothing absurd
in making a descent
to reach what’s preferred.

And then there are times
you also move sideways
with strong toes and claws that
gravity obeys.

Your voice is distinct,
tiny horns on the wind,
red-breast hardly counting
your breaths out and in.

You have a technique
that seems topsy-turvy
but finds more delights than
others more nervy.

Tapping each crevice
you find grubs and insects
that many high climbers
routinely do miss.

Despite your short wings
you lift off with some pluck
to prove, after all, you
know which way is up.

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