The lake radiates
a deep and gleaming jade.
Its bobbing ducks,
hissing geese, and lazing carp
evade the
shifting shade.
March welcomes
the first aureate streaks of spring,
which warm each wintered creature
and paint the lake
a lagoon green.
Two hummingbirds
dart toward a syruped feeder
stung up beside the banks,
sipping and then zipping
back toward the void
from which they came.
How do they navigate
the vast and endless blue,
swirling winds, and passerby-
the spring rains they flutter through?
And how do the ducks,
the geese, the carp,
all know that life
is coming soon-
That to every freeze
there is a thaw and
something born
anew?
Hell, some dim weeks,
I lose myself
in the gaping stretch
of cold.
But to watch the wild
intuit
is to be
directly told.
Hope is a thing
with feathers,
as Dickinson
once said.
For perhaps
the fish and feathers
know much better
than our heads.
pm poetry 