For Real Toads: ecstatic

Laurie's word for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads to use in a poem this week is: ecstasy. She gave three dictionary definitions for the word, including a chemical formula, for which I was unable to find a use in my poem, although I mention a chemical change near the end.

She also challenged us to write the poem in five minutes. 

Five minutes? No way.

To tell the truth, Laurie, I wrote the first four and a half lines in a couple of minutes, then got stuck for more than five minutes, so I went off to do something else.

like a prisoner in an attic

yesterday I was ecstatic

to have a window cut for me —

a window out of which to see

in winter deer who come to get

fruit from our tree, fruit frozen, yet

they eat from branches or from snow,

tall ones above, and young below;

then, in spring, the fruit, fermented,

makes waxwings appear demented:

birds seem to be in ecstasy,

in ornamental crabapple tree.