Poetry encore
A Brief Notion in the Evolution of Avian Migration
Winter Sun Winter sunshine warms my face, the overstuffed rocking chair surrounds me, tucked under that ugly green quilt. My sore throat waits for green tea and toast and my mother’s warm hands as the opera ascends from the square brown radio, tiny people inside singing the sad songs of La Bohéme. That little house is still a home, the pasture, bereft of horses, overflowing with houses. Could there be another sunny rocking chair protecting a child while Mimi longs for spring, warmed by Rodolfo’s hands? Now, my faraway window frames sunlit pines, pink in the morning light. Somewhere near, the deer are watching, waiting for my green hostas, free lunch with a birdbath chaser. Sibelius surrounds and saturates my sun and shadows and I am warmed by my old love’s hands as we watch for verdant spring and the deer. — Mary Hurlbut Cordier Cordier is an associate professor emerita of teaching, learning and educational studies at Western Michigan University, where she taught for 27 years. She is the author of Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains. She grew up in Iowa and for many years has lived in Kalamazoo with Kleinstuck Preserve in her backyard.
To think, that birds would hibernate like bears, hunkered down in muddied waters having gathered at banks of marshes, locked scaly toes ’round reeds, until hollowed heaviness bent stalks and the passerines slipped under—veiled in silt, submerged ‘til spring, when they would rise, return to dress the skies but not before a few fishermen bragged they had drawn nets brimming with drowsy swallows, wings sodden with sleep. No wonder this notion persisted; it’s comforting to think that beauty doesn’t really leave us, that one’s final destination is just a pond away. — Jennifer Clark
Clark is director of community relations for Communities In Schools of Kalamazoo. Her poems and stories have been published in journals and anthologies, and her first book of poetry, Necessary Clearings, is set to be released this summer by Shabda Press.
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