March wind floods gray branches
lined into deep blue sky,
baptizing this pocket of woods
with the sound of distant rapids.
Down by the low stream's trickle,
the wind is only a brittle whisper
through blond grass curls
overhanging the gray-brown bank.
But the wild rose bramble sports
budding horns of tightly curled leaves
(pink edges layered close as fish scales),
and the red-winged blackbird hangs
like a kite at the edge of the timber,
epaulets ablaze, throat burbling
call after call.
At the waterway's edge,
a buck's abandoned rack
rests, weighty and smooth,
satisfying to the hands,
bone of last year's life left
for the velvet of spring.
lined into deep blue sky,
baptizing this pocket of woods
with the sound of distant rapids.
Down by the low stream's trickle,
the wind is only a brittle whisper
through blond grass curls
overhanging the gray-brown bank.
But the wild rose bramble sports
budding horns of tightly curled leaves
(pink edges layered close as fish scales),
and the red-winged blackbird hangs
like a kite at the edge of the timber,
epaulets ablaze, throat burbling
call after call.
At the waterway's edge,
a buck's abandoned rack
rests, weighty and smooth,
satisfying to the hands,
bone of last year's life left
for the velvet of spring.
Wow. Such powerful beauty. I love the two descriptions of the wind -- a "flood" and a "brittle whisper" -- different settings and sounds. And red-winged blackbirds -- I love them! "Epaulets" is a great descriptor.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Beth! Red-winged blackbirds are some of my favorites, too.
DeleteSuperlative, Elena. Your eye is alert, your ear is well-nigh inerrant (especially in the first 2 lines of the second stanza); elsewhere in the poem, I cherish the fish-scale-layered leaves, the red-winged blackbird with epaulets ablaze, the velvet of spring. All the moments of this poem, really!
ReplyDeleteIn a recent tongue-in-cheek poem I implied that excellence can be forbidding (a reader who writes can feel daunted by seeing superior examples of the poetic art!). But yours is an excellence which invites, which encourages, which fortifies.
Do you know Hart Crane's poem "March"? It's one of his minor, modest poems -- it can probably be found online somewhere. (I can't imagine that all of Crane's work would be to your liking; Crane "over-writes" and is both obscure and bombastic at times. But I think you'd like "March.")
Thank you, Thomas! I'm very glad you find my poems inviting; I find yours to be the same. And now I'm off to look up "March."
ReplyDelete