Migrants

This entry is part 66 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

The field sparrow is back—
that rising trill spilling
from a small, pink beak.

A yellow-bellied sapsucker
taps a ring of wells all around
the bole of a hickory.

You nap on the porch,
ears open to the creek and other
migrant tongues.

Rain date

This entry is part 62 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

It’s the first petrichor of spring—
that musk the soil gives off after rain,
strongest when long delayed.

So who wouldn’t choose
a day like today for dancing?
Side by side, cackling softly,

the two pileated woodpeckers
hitch their way down a tall locust tree
all the way to the ground.


For a fuller description (and pictures) of this unusual pileated behavior, see Rachel’s blog post.

Old field

This entry is part 61 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

Most of the goldenrods still standing
at winter’s end are topped
by the empty habitations of wasps.

Dried half-pods of milkweed
cluster three to a stalk,
a Baroque superfluity of arch and wing.

From the woods, a drumming grouse
reminds me what real wings can do—
that accelerating heartbeat.

Spruce grove

This entry is part 55 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

A brown-striped breast feather
floats down from a high bough
in the spruce grove

where some hawk or owl
plucked a grouse. The outermost
trees rock in the wind.

I step carefully as a bridegroom
over each raised
threshold of root.

Camouflage

This entry is part 54 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

Harried by crows,
the pale red-tailed hawk
glides along the ridge

and lands in a stand
of black locusts broken
by last December’s ice,

one more pale wound
among the ragged spears
of raw wood.

Evolution

This entry is part 53 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

A circling crow
turns into a hawk
as it clears the trees

with their bare-boned
parceling of the light. And then
those upswept wings—

primaries splayed like hands
open to the ground—
can only be vulture.

Downsizing

This entry is part 37 of 91 in the series Toward Noon: 3verses

 

Day by day
the shadows are dwindling,
assuming more realistic shapes,

like the ambitions of a man
in middle age.
The snow hardens underfoot.

I hear the first
mourning dove call of the year:
desire in a minor key.