The Birds of No Season
Time to go out and about again,
It's spring, the thing to do now,
Be safe from winter and what has been,
Watch the first small buds press through the bough.
What if it's a ghost spring—
No leaf emerges, no sweet call
Of bird number one braving a chill March wind,
Bending his throat sunward, nothing at all.
Then the fallen snow climbs back into
cloud,
The year reverses, dead leaves appear on the tree,
Bird after bird returns with song piercingly loud,
Piercing my heart with your memory.
And saying all this I stand so
Bewildered in a storm of their wings,
All around the crying of birds, not the spring's,
Spring suddenly far off, and you
Standing in an autumn garden,
Your hands out to the birds calling,
A cold flurry of wings around you,
And the leaves falling.
—John McBride
