A house finch on a juneberry tree
Feeding
On the fruit
That has yet to be

for Brigitte

Give thanks for her hands,
For the years they’ve woven,
For the soft touch, the steady grip,
That’s held you through the storms.

Give thanks for the quiet nights,
For the way she rests beside you,
Not needing words to say everything,
In the silence, she speaks.

Give thanks for her eyes,
For their spark, their warmth—
A mirror to your own heart,
In their depths, you’ve found your home.

Give thanks today,
Tomorrow,
And every breath between,
For she is the song that calls you home
And the silence that lets you listen.

I twist them into strange forms,
Others—vile abominations.
They beg,
Cries thick with desperation,
To be people again.
But I tell them,
“You shouldn’t have stared so long.
I’m a poet, you know.
I have this power,
And no control.”

My left knee tells me it’s still winter.
My shoulders are still unsure.
Every part of me that aches
Aches more for the uncertainty.
I smoke some Acapulco Gold.
A serpent creeps down from the sun
And curls round my spine.
A warm wind blows over me
And for a while I don’t feel old.

Two blue jays land without a sound
then—
a hawk

light
and shadow
tear across the grass

the jays lift
and the chase
disappears
like it was never there

A day of such absolute stillness
Belongs to its own mausoleum.
It’s probably been dead for years
Like the power of any potentate.

Scanning the trees and the ground
It’s just like Keats might have said,
Scarcely has the very smallest leaf
Moved from where it sometime fell.

It’s a day to sit still and be grateful,
A day for thought and restful eremition,
Like a cancer in remission,
The spirit, at rest, beside its flesh.

Just last week in the neighbourhood
I saw an eastern bluebird
For the first time in years
More often they are in open spaces
I’m glad they’re still around
With royal blue and russet feathers
They are always beautiful to see
Now that it is almost April
Winds can still turn from the North
The earth could still hesitate
And ice encapsulate a flower
In a prism of glass
I’m afraid for the eastern bluebird
Will it survive a blast from winter
Will it have time to nest
It might be the last one I ever see
The last one to weather the changes