Two Chairs and a Grill

On the back deck, snow has turned two empty chairs, sitting beside the shrouded grill, into phantoms with open arms waiting for corn to roast, peppers to lose their crisp edges, onions to gather sweetness, and shrimp to hold their fibrous flavor for the taster's tongue. Birds by the score, alerted by the snowy air, raid the feeder above the grill. Woodpeckers come, the hairy, the downy, the nuthatch the ladder-backed, feasting on suet. Smaller birds ignore fear (and the watchers behind glass), bravely eat beside their enemy as they dart, hop, fly on, over, and under, two chairs and a grill.