A First of Spring

Always unexpected, spring arrives. Water and warm spring air raises grass On hills before the sheep and llamas graze. Rain falls and tries to glaze fields of yellow hay Stippled by the husbanded animals and deer With their round mouthed chewing into cud. Now, farmers can stop trips to buy extra hay In town, pickup trucks with rolled hay bales Jostling down the washboard country roads. Spring calving and planting Easiest of clichés: Renewal, and I watch the fields green. Queued up around the edge of the nearest one, A stand of bushes and though there is no wind, One quakes and shivers as if it’s cold. I inspect beneath its outer leaves To see two birds fluttering feathers And jumping from branch to branch Picking dark berries off, Pecking them out of shape And with broken neck gestures Shake their heads from side to side And eat them one by one. (4/9/21)