hope like arugula sprouts
big enough to be seen
from a second-floor window
*
cat out and leap-chasing
shadows—sparrow, crow,
flick/sway of still-bare branches
*
water wind-rippled in bird baths
sometimes sun-shimmered, reflecting
on redbud bark
*
that april blizzard and how
we could see again
smooth-swirl snow on rooftops,
dollops on red-budded trees
will you take my voice, now
rough with disuse
again, the way
green pokes out from last year’s brown
leaves, bold of its welcome
no matter how thin
or straggly or
unintended
it happens
from time to time, a mystery
small bird in the house
junco wild-flight hurl at glass door
falling stunned; sparrow
parked on pantry, peering
black-eyed over the molding
how it spent a night in the mixing bowl
how I caught it in the curtain, heart beating
flutter in my closed hand
how the dog whined and pointed
how the cat had grown bored long since
the gift already given
we’re down to icy slush, footstep-shaped
margins of grass or sodden islands
sudden lakes, squished plastic bags
sidewalk-washed downstream
the dripping we heard overnight a dream-
breath of spring, sheets too warm
the same winter birds but heard
with the door cracked
how things get ugly before getting better
like a healing bruise, the heart
churns, chugs, pumps again and
in winter’s dreg-end we sweep away
the debris
not the smell of summer but a memory
earth, sun, sweat
or skin or breath, all of it
fading. where a heart stirs yet
beneath these layers of snow
tired of the season’s responsibility
our nerves, words, glances dry-
cracked as winter knuckles
those leaves that still cling, nearly
unrecognizable to our warmer selves
is snow on ice on ice on snow
and we know this is metaphor
also, this floundering through drifts
and bleak shivering, a slip and a fall
juncos flit and chickadees
never give up their song, the warning note
for all these branches bent under
their own frozen weight, summer’s broken stems
brittle and glazed
how far down do we hold our love’s roots, the seeds
and is this the winter
that kills them
snow clouds re-gather,
cardinals chirp, crabapples
bright against full gray
and seed feeder full—how else?
some give; others only take
we whiz along, or grind
jaws tight with effort
to be good and right and
happy
until we explode—
all the mess to clear up
exhausted
screaming and crying and chaos and blood
nearly always
the loom of news vans
we are no more than animals
we fear
while juncos hop along the brick
cat-scattered
squirrel descends fence
walnut bigger than its head
tight in its teeth
put your words away
birch leaves are gone
redbud silent in cold rain
*
how brittle the red pine needles
even now in full green
next year’s cones waiting
*
one day to the next orange leaves
scarlet berries note the difference
in sky, a human smile
*
the poster says hug a tree
to lower blood pressure
feel striation or smoothness—also listen
in this fountaining the flutter
wing-dust and scattered
seed, greening
why should you not return
to heartening beneath
your one-note lament
and need for salt don’t say
it’s always the same
for when have you ever noticed
roses blown open to rain
robins food-screeching
in your window-tree?
Graceful Press Poetry 