Spring; arrival

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When, awake one day, the air feels different.

Warmer, maybe, dirt wicking up through snow.

And blood from some coyote kill

tunneling down on the sharpness of its departing heat.

When, wandering in the new sun, you think no one is around

and pee at the bend in the long driveway

surprising the neighbor, his black lab, and his Chihuahua.

When your friend’s car skids into a snowbank on melt ice, and, with two pushing

must slide sideways 100 feet downhill to go straight.

The sense of unsticking

and motion again.

When there is mud, inexplicably, on all of your pants.


When you crack the windows for the first time

and it is still too cold

but oh well.

When the strike of sun sends air runneling from hilltop into valley,

forcing woodsmoke and ash back into the house

on its blow.

When wasps fly from the wall while you’re on the phone and

fuckfuckfuckow

and the man on the other end of the line

hears tinny yells of vengeance and swatting.

When the snow has crusted, and the dogs walk atop it

digging for mice in every sage well

carrying the sharp scent home in their fur.

When the great gray owl greets you on the road some nights

and some nights twice

and most you ever see

is the diagonal flash of its wings.

When, bewildered by sound, you look up into a ponderosa and realize

it is full of birds, returned

When pairs of them lift and

stitch the blued sky with song.

***

Original drawings by the author

2 thoughts on “Spring; arrival

  1. Beside a world of human ugly, you give us fragments of beauty to keep us going.
    Thank you.

  2. This morning I heard the songs of the robins as the 15 of them flew down to the bird bath and sat shoulder to shoulder on the its lip. Dipping one by one as if in a synchronized water ballet. Yes…. it’s coming.

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