An Annual Welcome to Spring

Today starts Daylight Savings Time. That is, for me, a more definite indication of Spring.

I wrote this poem several years ago and usually post it at this time of year.

Seasons of Change

Arrogance of a long, black neck

curving tall among the wild onions

the Canada gander stands guard.

Turns of his head are clear:

flashing the white, vivid splash

behind each suspicious eye.

 

Long, dusk-shadowed wings that know so many miles

tucked behind

much as a man’s clasped hands;

watching

like a department store floorwalker.

 

He, watching;

she, busily, practically

nibbling tender, green shoots

ignoring all else.

 

Sometime before dawn,

someone up early, or across the lake

probably heard the calls to assembly,

watched the twenty-two lift,

form a ragged wedge and turn for home

in the usual way,

and marked the changing of seasons.

 

Have these two mistaking the chill

of a late-march Alabama night

for the cool of their nesting grounds?

 

Having chosen to stay in this backwater

a little longer;

their path to the north will be quieter

without the clangor of the flock,

traveling their own track

making their own seasons of change.

 

TD