March

Rain-glaze on snow. Mud and ice and snow.

Coyotes feed themselves on gaunt dreams of spring. Then

what comes slowly suddenly he sees.

Light hovers longer in the southern sky.

Brooks uncover themselves. Alders redden.

Grosbeaks' beaks turn green. Chickadee finds the song

he lost last November, and blue jay abandons

argument and gluttony. He cranes his neck,

bobs his mitered head; he bounces on a naked branch

crying: Spring!

But, like all winter's keepers

he speaks his dream before

he sees the fact.

Did you hear a phoebe?

And he out again and walking on the earth,

in the air, in the sun, ankle deep in mud.

--David Budbill