Birds in Winter-Judy Loest, local poet.
Hokusai’s crane stares down
From my bedroom wall
Graceful on his icy bough
Like doves outside in snow
These January mornings are truth
Laid bare, a cold combustion
Of white winnowing earth
And air. Even the sparrows
Have fallen, tucked around
And still as stones
While earth takes back
It’s dead. A single crow
Skims the grizzled hair
Of kudzu along the river,
Vanishing in hoary smoke,
There is no hiding here
In this unforgiving season,
In the silent stare of sparrow
And the dove unimpaired
By guilt or reason
Nothing reminds the body
Of it’s simple needs or place
In the inscrutable hurl of time
Like the stillness of birds in winter.
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