Clinging to birds like droplets of hope.
Loving each for simply appearing. 
Watching them glisten the trees in our yard;
above wild flow of the Mascoma River.
Loving each for having feathers and beaks. 
For sharing the branches and bird feeder perches. 
Their language of song, put out to the wind, joins 
a fabric of sky with cotton ball clouds.
Darling chickadees swoop the air, helmeted in caps. 
Jays muscle in, uniformed sharply in blue.
Goldfinches amass, boisterous in yellow bunches. 
Do they know of war? 
Invasion and destruction underway in Ukraine. 
Do they feel the threat of nuclear doom? 
The long yellow-blue bruise of racism wounding our nations? 
Do they realize the gift they are to this human being? 
Reminder post-it notes of connection.
Anti-anxiety medication; imperfect (not cure) but helping.
Little flying pills, flitting in sunlight, each one a resting
spot for too-fast pulse, too-busy thoughts, too-dark fears.
Attaching helplessness to each little wing, each little taloned foot; 
I feed it to each beak, and let it fly away, return, fly away
absorbed in feathers and the busy-work of surviving.
Relief, sweet, like crying. 
Little birds/little tear drops. Gathering 
and evaporating to join the sky; 
to fill the river.
                        

…hallelujah! Whatever my pen can name, my pen can defeat *

February 25, 2022.  Shoveling, 
and there’s freshly falling war 
in Ukraine. We’ve been at this rodeo 
in so many places so many times.
Refugees with nowhere to go, a culture in ruins.
News precipitates in tweets and posts, 
the headlines blanket our screens with building grief; 
an icy grip of unexplainable harms…

It snows relentlessly today. Most had melted
but we’re back here again, shuttered in, 
preparing for a fight,
shovel vs. lower back muscle,
and an itinerary of clear the path, clear the path,
clear it again, and again.
A street plow lumbers by, tank-like, and leaves a line 
of condensed snow across each driveway; 
an extra edge of challenge. A border to cross.

Inside, I put pen to paper and keep it moving, 
and will, until there’s no more space to fill,
or no more ink to flow. The blue of my ink 
will match, volume to volume, each cold sorrow.
Writing a tunnel to tomorrow
some will come through.