In my calendar, spring starts on the first day that I open the windows. Winter may return tomorrow, or the next day, or almost certainly the next, but spring started this morning.
Undone
This is the house of chores undone
The kingdom of cluttered intent
Where I toil without progress
Up and down the stairs
Through closets and drawers
Of excess, where we hide
What offends the irritable eye
A scrambled profusion of parts
Unused, whether needed or not
In a bookcase or swing
Still here or long gone
From our domestic castle
Of clenched jaw and glare
The turrets of temper
Piled stone upon stone
Mortared with what we didn’t do
For each other, or ourselves
With what we didn’t discard
In time, simply stored it aside
To stutter free in some later war
All the doors flung open
And cabinets exposed
Spilling the bobbins and bolts
Of our careless disrepair
Underfoot, a bitter shambled state
Of grace, because we stay
To sweep it up again, and say
A house cannot keep us undone
Adaptation
Some days I hardly remember
What it is to fly
What loss is
When morning feels like betrayal
And shoulders ache
With sudden gravity
Pressed into cruel bone design
Too human for wings
As if I never once awoke
Hair smelling of cloud
Wound in wild knots
And damp with tears
Or slept
Curled into a crevice of wind
Other days I recall myself
Grace confined to memory
In which I have never flown
And it was only ever a dream
Of falling
With all the other angels
Early last year, while walking at First Landing State Park, I noticed a small flock of chickadees foraging alongside a pair of downy woodpeckers. The chickadees seemed like amateurs in such practiced company, but all of the birds appeared to enjoy success.
It was the first time I had seen chickadees exhibit this particular foraging technique, and the already beautiful day brightened. The euphoria of my new knowledge followed me home. It lingered for days, sending me back to the Park for another walk much sooner than I might otherwise have gone.
I was able to capture a few seconds with my camera, a fleeting glimpse that words alone would never convey. I find this difficult to admit, as I love words and am reluctant to acknowledge their limits. I find it even more difficult to accept that the moment can never be reproduced or shared in full. How unfair, that time and space conspire to render memory so singular and personal.
