Migration

    by Holly Day

 

The birds come back and it’s a new world.

even with snow on the ground, a flock of spotted starlings at the feeder

means that spring is coming any day now, the birds are here so it must be so.

 

As the season progresses, more birds come: clusters of robins

pair off, build nests, sparrows flutter into the apertures of tiny birdhouses

investigate anything that looks like it might be a possible nest

the catbirds appear as the lilacs open, hesitant, furtive, sly.

 

When the goldfinches make their first appearance by the river

with the bluebirds in the back yard and the orioles in the swamps

it’s enough to make one think that winter was just a bad dream

one had long go, a dream populated  by only blue jays and cardinals

flocks of aggressive black crows picking through roadkill

the massive flap of turkeys’ wings 

as  they struggle their way through the air.

 

Bio: Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Talking River, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and the Indiana Writers Center.

 

SIGNS OF SPRING

         by John Grey

 

Returning the bird houses

to their nail in the tree trunk -

filling the bird bath -

running the lawn mower

through its paces -

removing the plastic

from the patio furniture –

opening a window –

stepping outside

sans jacket -

 

I too

am a sign of spring.

 

MY ONE AND ONLY APRIL POEM

       by John Grey

 

April’s the month

that goes to the fairground alone,

finds everything boarded up

until summer.

 

And it’s the friend

you haven’t seen in a long time,

who, you just heard,

has left town for good.

 

April is when

the weather’s done traveling

from the north

but the warmth in the south
is not yet on the move.

 

It’s an old house

that creaks with life

and yet nobody lives there.

 

April is another name for mud,

for gray, for nomads,

for monastery cellars,

for the west wall of a cemetery.

 

It’s a postcard

from someone

who never travels,

a memory

only ever of itself.

 

But mostly

April is drizzle,

that most unconvincing

of rainfall.

 

It’s new life

made to suffer.

It’s buds opening

to a slap in the face.

 

Bio: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Abbey. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.