Exile is over,
I’ve searched for myself for years,
every day I’m gone.

Spring incantation,
killdeer fly over and call—
not quite time to rest.

Only a few words
the white of the page like snow,
where mystery is.

March snow is hardest,
I clear a place for the doves,
we all wait it out.

Shapes form in the void,
the three-in-the-morning mind—
awake as birdsong.

What it must be like
to have wings with red shoulders,
the sky as your home.

Branches on the ground,
lined up after the ice storm,
to be burned, ground up.

Made of sky and stars,
bright leaves from my nature box,
laid out on vellum.

Empty chrysalis—
space for a beautiful thing,
a wandering life.

This humble round nest,
past and maybe future home,
to be salvaged, loved.

Some days I’m not here,
back and forth on the timeline,
just learning to be.

Thinking about birds,
trees, unlivable today,
after the ice storm.

Protect these people,
Mr. Vonnegut would say,
just trying to be.

Standing on this spot,
thinking of that other shore,
my mind can make it.

Bursting into seed—
cattail like a soft match head,
becomes food, homes, nests.

My heart on my sleeve,
there’s no other place for it,
in this long, bare life.

Heart-shaped nose, crossed paws,
companion like no other,
the sun, just being.

Catching the light,
moss striped with snow grows bright green,
warm under my hand.

A lichen bracelet,
a sheet of birchbark paper,
specked with gold stardust.

Alone, in a dream,
setting the downside aside,
coming out alive.