treasury mounds—
fortunes of wood chips
and gold leaves and cinders
over which
a last few worker bees
and rodent sentinels scurry—
are piled up high
beneath this throne
of the last remaining
queenly robin:
a bony
upturned hand of oak—
her sticky bare head,
which once humbled her
in spring,
now her majestic
autumn crown;
the trilling intermezzos
of westerly wind,
which once served
as scourge of her
balance in this place,
now flow about her
in decorous folds: a royal
byzantine cloak.
