Thaw

This music—when the alder and maple drop
their icy lace handkerchiefs on the soft mud
beneath Sol's melting gaze—songs made of
streams and cast-off shells, over then under
frozen ledges layered and fractured as mica.

This music sings me into silence. No sound but
my slow inhale, exhale—I hold still, even when
a pebble, frost-heaving down an embankment,
splashes, startling me. It's Spring, the creek is
playing, tumbling, singing its thawing. So am I.