This Spring

 It is the end of March, 

Loam awaiting yet to ether the air

An unexpected swath of squalls 

Yesterday 

Hurt expectant in the spring, 

Lake snows, icy pellets 

White-outted my roads home 

From dealing with my vehicle 

At the dealer dealing with my vehicle. 

Driving, I felt the fury of that weather, 

Intrinsically beautiful, and 

Infuriating. 

As I’d been driving, I was trying to

Process spring, this particular one, 

I’d been searching for 

The sad answer to why the 

Huge limb, stalwart

Of an ornamental pear 

That I watched come down 

In some slow and awful majesty

Barely days ago just had to go.

In the slow motion of the moment, though,

Derecho, precise, I swear, 

It just went through

As I sat watching 

From the conservatory in 

The house with no power. 

I remembered from my growing 

Being keen to heeding warnings, and

Calming, doing best what 

I know how to do, 

Ready as can be, need be, and 

Powerless so bedrock 

Save my own. 

Soon it passed, that wind,

Eleven hours we’d no power. 

I was glad of course when lights came back, 

But I was in the storm. 

Yesterday we walked to the springing

Storm-disheveled back, barn gardens 

In their ancient knowing years appearing, 

And I near-crumpled to the 

Downed tree’s limb, 

Aghast and sorrowing 

When my friend said, 

Look. She’s budding. 

Capture

 On the eighth of March, 

The light, the day changing,  

I didn’t know what to do with myself 

There was snow on the red rooftops of the barns

When I woke early on the morning

And I thought

I need more sleep

And later on the March morning

When I really did wake to the

New day, 

The snow was gone

And in the afternoon

Hovering, the moon rising mysterious 

In the troubled 

Most-blue spring sky 

I was reassured, in my own deep

And my sigh carried me to

As ever and ever 

Shall be 

Landscape

Where can I go when the constraints, 

When there are constraints

But no space for constraints, 

Make me want to  

Run away

To anything

Anyone, any 

Possibility

Of braving 

The scariest leap I feel upon me 

To take into 

A universe not understood? 

Does it matter that I am old, a

Pilgrim cleaving to 

Ancient messages from 

Rivers and plains

Where understandings 

Grew and bloomed

Before age helped me 

In my stubborn recalcitrance 

Find my way

Into mystery

Now become comfort 

In the maelstrom? 

Protest

I can’t go anywhere for a day, 

Day or two

Unclear, 

The whims of February

But in this momentary stasis

I am flying on an aeroplane 

With that strange relief of perspective 

Knowing that all is out of my control

I begin my telling because this is a 

Terrifying beautiful beauty here, 

Everywhere

In ice, these days of grey then

Flour-sifting snow, then rain, 

Graupel, 

Sleet and 

Patterning ice

Mind you when I tell you this is new

The plains woman’s wiring, mine, telling

This is weather that is new. 

And we are deep in ice, then snow 

To ice that melts a bit, freezes, and then snow, 

And on. 

Denny came down to drag Peter’s truck

Spun out on ice

Taking hay to the goat barn

Back to a spot unblocking the long drive 

Toward the other barns and 

All feels settled for the moment. 

Everywhere there is nothing 

But rolling sheen, bluing into dark, 

Our land of ice pure and pristine right now

In the deep out there 

My head beginning to clear

In the heart

Though I’ve no idea 

What lies on the horizon. 

Responsorial

 Responsorial

Listen to yourself, dear, 

She’d say, 

Holding my hand,

Winds whipping whisps about 

In our hair

As I was leaving, 

Always leaving in the heat blowing

The dry sultries that settled like

Barely breathing mantles we shouldered in 

Those Great Plains summers

She always said that to me.

I want what I want. 

Look at yourself, I say to him, recalling

Timeless words, wisdoms shared, 

Becoming braver in the recall, and saying 

What I want with you 

More stability

More understanding

More space

I want all that 

And I want to love you in 

The ways of love. 

And also

But also, 

And I also

Want all that

That I have and will never 

Not want anymore,

And flying above and under the

Beyond, the past and future, 

I say to him, I will never crave more of 

The precious than what we have. 

Coda 

There were years before she saw 

That river again

Though she crossed too many to 

Remember

Save 

The Little Huerfano, an 

Unchained melody