Running Water
Spring drains the snowbanks
across the field grown up in small trees,
sends them running beside the road
in a stream that gushes through
the culvert beneath, races
and flashes down the pasture,
skirts the pond where buoys raise
their frozen heads above the still
iced surface, spills past,
through the woods in rivulets,
joins the creek, swollen to flood
by this sudden warmth,
rattles into the tributary
of the tidal river fanning into the bay
overarched by bare branches of trees
zipping and unzipping a torrent
of blackbird singing, a flock
just passing through, heading north,
except those half dozen there
on the top branch who think
the cattails in the marsh look
like summer, look like home.
They’re singing the water’s tune.
They’re staying.
Spring drains the snowbanks
across the field grown up in small trees,
sends them running beside the road
in a stream that gushes through
the culvert beneath, races
and flashes down the pasture,
skirts the pond where buoys raise
their frozen heads above the still
iced surface, spills past,
through the woods in rivulets,
joins the creek, swollen to flood
by this sudden warmth,
rattles into the tributary
of the tidal river fanning into the bay
overarched by bare branches of trees
zipping and unzipping a torrent
of blackbird singing, a flock
just passing through, heading north,
except those half dozen there
on the top branch who think
the cattails in the marsh look
like summer, look like home.
They’re singing the water’s tune.
They’re staying.