by
Nadia Herman Colburn
Living
with the seasons you relinquish
Part
of yourself. All those days
Buried
in cold. What spread around you:
The
enclosing of branches in a silver coat
of mail,
The
elegant, irregular daggery tendrils of ice, suspended in air,
The
earth upturned and studded with teeth, gorging
On
last year's stubble grasses--all remains anonymous.
So
when in summer under sounds of martins,
Veeries,
tanagers, phoebes, you hear the clear
Throatless
continuation of the brook
Arguing
over pebbles, don't search
For
what has long been missing;
Those
shapes of winter have stolen off with the thaw,
With
the outline of hopes. Give them up!
Out
here with the songbirds, with the variety of notes,
You're
holding yourself together, covering up
In
the play of southwesterly wind the chasms
Where
you've been seduced and let go
Like the long, snowy seeds of the dandelion.