Today the only birds are crows,
inkblots on neatly drawn branches,
a Southern winter’s fine design.
Crows’ baritone croaks strike the air,
more percussion than spring birdsong.
 
Somehow the sun seemed warm enough 
to allow us to slip off hats 
and gloves, forego jacket and coat 
on our walk past the now-closed school.
 
Playground crows dip into the last
of someone’s ghost pepper Rap Snacks 
and bone-dry bread in the dumpster.
Crows caw delight, calling their mates.
No boys or girls brave the birds’ yard.
 
I think of my old school up north, 
air thick with floor wax, apple juice, 
school baked pizza. Chalk motes floated, 
sometimes danced in frozen sunlight.
 
I imagine these two schools, both
closed almost one year now, their scents
slipping away, sounds of footsteps
forgotten.

This spring, its sky the gray of cobwebs,
we learn to walk in almost-rain. 
 
Today the stream once dwindled to damp dirt 
has returned to bustle through the swamp,
 
burst over small banks, flood muddy flats, only stopping 
where a robin coolly extracts a worm.
 
This spring, its scent hidden in cold rain and low clouds,
in bright, cemetery flowers, the fear of touch,
 
we learn to learn from what we can see
again and again and again and again.