All summer long there was always
a caw, a complaint or call.
And later in the fall,
as the breathy clouds
when the wind’s westerly move
endlessly away from you,

whole flocks of finch appear
to forage in the weeds
that struggle and go to seed where
the driveway fractures and drifts,
as the continents themselves,
we are told, fracture and drift.

And in winter at 30 below,
your breath escaped you,
a white cloud across
that big morning star
like one singular and rare
chrome wind chime’s note,

then a door far off slams so
another does then a dog barks
then another then the pickups,
cars and vans in sequence startle
the heavily feathered sparrows
flocking bare lilacs along
four geometric blocks
of perfectly shoveled snow.

And then the same swallows come
back to nest in the same
inverted flowerpot painted
whatever color’s handy
and nailed to a shingle
blown off the roof,

and then the trees take on
their burden again and again
we are left with almost nothing
but Spring and happiness,
the conditional joys.

Bruce Taylor is curator of Local Lit. Every April, National Poetry Month, he indulges himself, which he does in other ways throughout the year, but not so publicly. For more about Bruce Taylor, visit his author page at VolumeOne.org.