Inviting Mother to dinner

Mother’s fecund perfume arrives on cool air 

through screened windows above the sink.

The open latch invites intimacy with source and destiny, 

arrives with grace and, somehow hope,

under dusk’s blanket.

The kitchen fills with syncopated croaking,

as if agreed to the night before;

one, then two, then a dozen rasping versions,

and then silence because the neighbor’s black cat 

skulks through the greenway,

up to no good as far as the frogs can tell.

Robin neighbors chirp in starts and stops 

hopping through the duff, poking for the day’s final catch

while I chop celery, rinse mushrooms

prepare Mother’s bounty for our grateful table.

I pause a moment and wonder 
if I listen well enough will I be able to hear 

nesting crows pull moss from branches on the maple tree.