Whiting, Early February \ Boundaries

Alan:  After 31 years in our little house by the bay, the past two winters we’ve had to spend in whole or in part in another town, in a place with easier accommodations.  April marks the season of return, for the woodcock and for us.

Whiting, Early February

How

        could the sound

of water dripping

   through filter

paper

         into your morning

   coffee

reel me

         for an instant

   home,

                  to April

a woodcock

                   whickering

                            like a winged seed

         downward

into dusk?

Nancy: Days recalled at night, where sharp edges disappear.

Boundaries

Where the atoms are free in their movement –

gray, white, invisible –

we call it air.

I breathe it in; it becomes my boundary,

inside, outside.

I breathe it out,

and it becomes the edge of the goshawk;

it becomes that which fills the snow,

the footprints of the vole, the place where

air wing edge bird

becomes air wing edge snow.

The fur is dark, the blood red,

a few spots on the snow;

the gray white bird has flown

and the air, invisible, becomes

my boundary, inside, outside.