Fruit of Lost Winter

February 27th Lower Peninsula of Michigan One week of true cold and snow is all This year Today is the warmest day ever recorded For this entire month An ancient age is passing Winter shorter To the flowing length of my shadow Stretched longer and further from the elder sun In my backyard Pileated Woodpeckers like black-eyed dolls Dressed in too-tight red coats Are early treasures To the arms of Silver Beeches and Black Walnuts Forest thrashes At the tiny blades of hundreds of robins Descended Mis-led By a premature pull of migration Too soon Those permanent words pursed to the lips of us all When doomed A philosopher once said that the universe knows A life is the same in purpose Whether it be a still birth or that of a 90-year old Mother or father I’m not so sure but intrigued Robins continue to fork and fling last year’s gray leaves Up in the air and out of the way To their mad determined pecks at the hard ground And knotted branches With pure instinct my house of cats Look up Duck and trill at the windows Like London dodging the Blitzkrieg Birds can go back to sleep But blossoms cannot There’s not much future left For Michigan’s apple and cherry orchards This I know in my old bones As the robins sing The fragrance of fruit a sail of the past On the Maiden’s misplaced wind.