Below the dam the Wisconsin River runs, 
fast and open in January's lengthening light, 
silvery floes like windowpanes slipping past 
now and then as we stand in snow drift, 
our binoculars trained on the opposite bank, 
the tallest trees, where the eagles wait 
and watch with keener sight than ours 
for a hint of movement on the water  
and what's beneath--soaring down to skim 
and rise with another silvery shape 
in their feet. We count what we've seen:  
five eagles in that oak tree, three of them  
juveniles watching the hunt, learning  
to fish for themselves; four more adults 
in that tree, three more drying wings 
on the fallen log--twelve so far in all-- 
and in the oaks, seventy crows--or could  
they be starlings in a wintry flock? 
Overhead, the wide Vs of calling geese, 
shifting around their watery world; 
they must think we're fishing too, 
standing so still on the river's bank.
                        

Fat bulb encased in silver wax, you sit, squat,
an early Christmas gift, on the kitchen table--tips
of leaves a bare suggestion in the scissored slit
along your top, trimmed off--hint of chartreuse
pushing out budded stalks, each bud fattening
as stems climb, straining with the work to lift
the whole trumpeting architecture of your nine
swelling flowers over our daily oatmeal and soup--
green surge and blare of wide-open throats as
your whole contraption of blasting red beauty
shouts rebirth to our winter-frozen world.
                        

falls lightly, steadily, as we drive home
from watching the eagles fish, our highway
divided and nearly empty, passing twelve 
black and white cows in the feed lot
of a rusty red barn, black fans of silver
maple and open grown oak, old arborvitae 
hedges grown to walls, planted by home-
steaders long ago; and one turquoise-and-pink
fiberglass cow in a yard with HOPE
painted on its side. Under blue-iced snow 
the harvested ranks of corn stubble hold 
Wisconsin's rich black soil. Hope: 
how we live in the long winter cold.