CLIPPED IN SNOW FLIGHT ©

All through the long night a late April snow‑gale
had blown great guns out of the north
blasting away at the old and the new growth.

The home-flock for once was curiously quiet
their beaks playing dead, tucked under wing
and their feathers puffed out ‑‑ even the mallards.

As I blew vapor rings through the morning chores,
my rubber boots crunched the stiff sand in discord
scattering the flock. And grey waves lapped

in misbeats at the sandpit's banks.
By noon the snow had all but melted
even though the overcast still promised chill.

So heavy with catkins were the limbs of the ground birch.
So heavy with self, I clipped the wings of the mallards
to trim their flight safe within my knowledge.

The wild ducks flapped within the boundary
of the snow fence, arrested now in chicken flight,
waddling like fat hens through the clumps of marshgrass.

With awkward stealth the mallards tried to hide
behind the willows, nursing the tips of their rudders.
I squatted, waiting until habit called the wild ones out.

The silt still clung heavily to their underwings
as they took to the water with the homeflock.
They were soon dipping under to catch icicle minnows.

As they swallowed, the water glistened
on their warm, moving gullets ‑‑ coming up only for air.
Satisfied, I retreated to the thicket of the house.

In the incubator I turned the speckled eggs
of mallards who would never know
the largesse of their "great god."

Soon a brown‑winged hen would become a mother
who coaxes her chicklets away from the water.
Just then–
I heard a great commotion of quacking and grackling.
And as habit would sometimes call me out
I peered through the blinds of the window,
to spy the prehistoric unimagined:
five great cranes, the so‑called whoopers.

Skimming the water were two pairs, and a smaller
with russet markings still tingeing its head.
The whole of me whirred with great flickering wingbeats.
The great phoenix of passage had risen
from the saltbeds of the ancient inland sea.

The chick‑sized homeflock waded at some distance
as the cranes claimed the sandpit's nearer banks
stalking over the damp sand in silent grandeur.
Alert, they launched their heavy bodies on the cold waves
buoyed up with the lift of their swanlike necks.

A restless mallard winged up on the farthermost shore
and the cold yellow eye of the largest whooper
seemed to catch mine where I stood at the window
commanding me to stay within my sanctuary
invoking me to incubate a sanctuary

lying without the boundaries of my knowledge
where I may count with undaunted hope
the days to hatching of the rusty‑colored chicklet –
where I may fly with the young whooper in new sight
to skim northern lakes as the ice is breaking

to sail across the northern coastal tundra
a kingdom cousined with ptarmigan and snow geese
to prance upon thickly bedded reindeer moss
where I may soar above the prairie in fall flight
to migrate to the southern salt‑water delta

to winter unafraid from the raids of
turkey vultures, egg‑seeking raccoons
and people at windows who clip back fearful flight.
To be a whooper now strutting on the muddy bank
chucking errant shoots of new growth.

With a clear trumpet sound and a sudden flapping
the guard bird broke the impasse of my reverie
and turned all the world into water.
The other whoopers quickly joined in the slapping.
The homeflock scattered with me on the wind‑swept waves.

War hoops geared up the whoopers' anchored bodies.
They charged headlong toward the mudbank
on the wing‑tips of doubtful flight.
Their immense wings pounded upward in short arcs
until the juggernauts became airborne.

Their churr, churr, churr filled the sky
as they spiraled ever upward toward the hidden sun.
The great cranes glided from safe sight
over the cottonwoods ‑‑ out of my knowledge.
Clipped in snow flight, this wild one came up for air.




One Summer Day We Felt Like Writing
University of New Mexico Honors Program
Interdisciplinary, Writing Institute
Teaching Fellow, Summer 1987

“Two Brazen Hussies,” With Bonnie Brown
Dramatic Reading, Arne B. Larson Concert Hall
The Shrine to Music Museum, The University of South Dakota, Vermillion, 1994

Recitation, Opening Ceremony
1999 International Festival of the Cranes
New Mexico Technical Institute
Socorro, New Mexico