This morning

This morning

Sun spills across the frost warm as butter, and the day wakes. Birds sing tentative spring songs, and I can hear the water rushing in the stream, the rattle of the oaks’ dried leaves that will cling until the last breath of winter. I open a window and let in the keen new air. A cock crows, then another and another. Dogs bark. The air shivers, shrugging off the sounds, casting only cold stillness into the room. But the stillness is just a pause, a step poised to land on unknown territory. The foot completes its movement, the silence shivers again and fills with the humming of bees.

Almost spring
blossom forms
from secret saps and scents
within the cauldron
of nut-bright buds.

In the corner of my eye
a rich red swirls
gold and green-edged

Brigid passes
in chaffinch chirrup
the smell of green growing
lingers.