In the garden, I meditate, motionless. Birds, ignoring me, flit to the feeder.

A fat earthworm scrunches and telescopes across the flagstones into the sunlight, toward the feeder. Seeking food? Do earthworms eat what birds spill?

Never mind. Robins eat earthworms. One pounces, plucks.

Pity. I might have gone fishing.

Retired after four decades’ prizewinning print and broadcast journalism in Hartford CT, Don Noel received an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University in 2013 and has since published more than two dozen short stories and non-fiction pieces, with two novellas and a novel still looking for publishers. See more at dononoel.com.