MARCH BLUES

A blue bird carols
under the pine branches
near the ice pond
in a revelation
that spring is near
where children skate
wanting a summer orange
raw almonds and poppy seeds
from California vineyards,
a musician plays riffs
to the woodwinds
with his confident notes
of smooth jazz fingertip tunes,
while my hands open
from the bird feeder nearby
on quiet country roads
with scenes of my youth
everywhere by the pale suspense
of a falling silence
that only a poet knows
from a ghost town
who haunts to scale
the white hills
in the noonday air
scattering the shadows
as snow kisses the myrtle
by river beds
of a once rose trellis,
the sunshine simmers
down our backs
we hold up a village sled
as several boys play bocce
tiny flakes
from the exhaling sky
make their eyelids wince,
a teacher from a Vermont hike
shuffles by near the river beds
hoping greensward foliage
will come forth
on the pine covered branches.