Poems by Sandy Beck   photo by Sharon Broderidge Night is Black Saucer Eyes   in a turning head seeing where you cannot. Night is a community of scurriers scratching at spilled seed and left-over suet.   Night is large ears that hear a mouse's heartbeat thirty feet away. Night is soft, silent wings maneuvering through dogwood and magnolia, gliding across a moon-bright lawn.   Night is sharp talons, a beak that tears, a feathery silhouette devouring his prey.   Full-bellied and confident, night calls lustily from a longleaf snag- hooohooo-hoohoo, hoohoo-hoohooaw! Courtship fills the icy woods.   Night drops beside her, swaying from side to side, up and down. He sidles along a branch, then towards her again, raising each wing feathers fluffed.   She bows her head for a gentle scratch, then returns the favor herself. Night pauses: soft eyelids close; striped bodies nuzzle.   This night is a barred owl.     Paddling the Wakulla River   I will build my nest half under water, the rest in woods so you can breathe the night winds and be shaded from the first hot rays-- the ones that strike even before the river begins to steam.   Half under water, so we can lie secretly and cool, as the tall white heron struts above us, cottonmouth slinks the length of cypress limb and bright green lizard melts into as bright green leaf, drifting.   I will build my nest half under water, the rest in woods so you can have the biggest slice of moon, any piece you choose-- you, wrapped beneath in air and water, always like a present waiting.     Second Nature An ectotone is a transitional community, an edge, where two ecosystems overlap. A rich, diverse place where trees, bugs, birds visit and share. Edge-dwellers are space travelers, explorers, ambassadors.   The edge is an educational place where one gets a second chance, trading a broken wing, a blinded eye for ripe fruit or mice, already killed and laid out side by side.   A tail-less 'possum yawns, sniffs the air, and waddles toward the peeled banana which she grabs with both hands -- chewing, smiling, and smacking her lips all at once, as only a 'possum can -- then climbs onto a tree stump, turns twice   and stretches on her side in the sunny spot, like the black and white cat in the window who has never run through the woods, who has never chased squirrels or caught lizard tails, but he watches them all   with one eye and dreams. Barred owls click their beaks and swell to twice their size as I pour cool bath water and shovel rat parts from the sand.   A tiny kestrel rips at easy flesh, while lawn eyes study her hooked beak, sharp talons, bobbing head, and flicking tail -- a balancing act with just one good wing.   The hawks stand tall, their long, red tails shimmering in the morning sun. I turn the hose in their direction, the largest female drops her head back and opens her mouth. Above their cage, two hummingbirds suckle   on a purple morning glory vine, then zoom -- back to the woods, hawk eyes still focused on their shiny red throats.   I live at the edge -- where woods and lawn meet, where wild things sometimes forget their names.   Photo by Sandy Beck