Cottonwood leaves emerge from melting snow,
elm leaves, meditative pools of water,
viscid mud,
hills numbed brown
sky rife with geese barking for home.
Have you seen the shapes of those leaves?
Perfect scattered puzzle pieces,
prairie carpet.
The river moves south, suspicious brow
raised, water churning rippled with natures sparklers.
Trees remain skeletons-
branched arteries interrupt blue sky
so soon to change.
Meanwhile geese continue in triumph—
wave after wave against feathered clouds,
voices rise up with life and hope.
Do we ever sing this way,
move with such purpose
so sure of where were going?
I know enough to immitate,
to listen,
feel breeze against faded face,
to spot deer tracks
stretch toward the sky
and allow my voice to join
this gallant flat noted symphony of life.
"Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external."
Fyodor Dostoevsky/Letter to his brother Mikhail
