Spring Tide

SPRING TIDE

It has been more than a month
since a poem was delivered
to the Blue Rainbarrel Ranch.

In the meantime,
blossoms have burst from buds
like a patchwork quilt
draping the ridges above;
leaves in countless shapes
and thirty shades of green
have dressed the bare spines
of alder and oak
surrounding you
like a fairy's ring;
and the hummingbirds are taking turns
hovering at the red feeder
that swings constantly
from the top of the porch,
just above the wooden letters
that spell Home
backwards.

I can hear the honied melodies
of the morning birds,
and the mournful lyrics faraway
of the night dogs,
and I can feel
the moist black earth
from the garden's sculpted beds
between my fingers.

I see cats leaping
white-bellied in the air
after my blue-belled catfish lure.
I sense Sarge curled close,
watching me,
while I read movie reviews
by the wood stove,
or leaning softly
against stumps
miles away;
he and I sole witnesses
to massive cloud shoulders masking
a cold sun
in an eggshell sky,
casting their moving curved shadows
over the bare foreheads
of the logged-off mountain tops.

I can view
a delicious wedge of night
through the skylight above your bed,
alongside the perfect warmth
of your thigh,
in my mind,
so clearly,
like the icy water moving
sweet and strong
down Dry Bed Creek.

But April remains Olympic
and defiant,
and it can not be captured
within the slim lines
of one poem.


Glenn Buttkus 1991