march

“The songs have changed, but really they are still quite beautiful.” ― Louise Glück, Averno

[cover is from “Egyptian Geese in Flight Over a Pond” by Errol Stephen Boyley]

March has always been a somewhat uncertain month. Winter has not quite finished speaking, but the earth has already begun answering to the spring in small, premature gestures. March is a month of partial returns. These two poems come from small observations of the world during this time

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the routes taken on forward and return migration are often different*

The cranes are swift across the clouds — angels,
with their fabled wings, nearly sinless. 
The fields know the song of young geese
and cranes, of cormorants and cuckoos — yet
they do not answer
to the road-tired call of their aged voices

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on a walk around my neighborhood

I count
         a raven,
         a cormorant,
         and the black slugs
                                              that drag their bodies
                                               after the storm,
                                               towards the damp,
                                               shivering brambles 

         the geese
                                             with their brown breasts,
                                             shaking off yesterday's
                                             dew from their feathers
there is perhaps,
         a dog,
                                             running loose here and there,
         and a cold, honeyed sunset

I see
         the first bruise
                                             upon the earth mid-february,
         a crocus,
                                             already withering away
                                             under the frost,
                                             foolishly brave

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[“Forest meadow” - Hans Thoma]

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