Ready or not
The readiness is all, he says, but I’m not
ready, not for this: the bluebird back before
her time—that is, if she ever left—the winter
soft as summer mist when pink buds swell
too soon, surprising. Which should, it seems,
be cause for joy, but, yet again, it is not so,
for on this fragile island earth, ice fields melt,
dark waters rise, and sweeping north in wild
flight, swans bear within them seeds of death,
not yet in bloom, but it will come when warbler,
wood duck, raven, wren drop from the silent sky
like stones; and in the green dawn no birds sing.
