Actually, poetry every morning is the norm for me. Not writing it, sad to say, but reading favorites. Here are two that speak volumns about this time of year in the Pacific NW, from Wes Hanson, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I hope you will enjoy these as much as I do. He’s given me permission to post them on this blog.

> Field Notes
>
> Though snow crust caps brown weeds,
> Though pine needles are old green,
> Though winter birds talk in cliches,
> I search for buttercups.
>
>

> Nature Works
>
> I look out the window
> at the bird feeder
> where chickadees and nuthatches
> land and push through husks
> for seeds. They pick pocket booty.
> Below them juncos peck
> debris and flit to nearby brush.
> Finches tilt the feeder.
> I think their size should push off other birds, but hunger invokes courage.
> Or is this just my feeling?
> Anyway, the rush between the feeder
> and tree limbs continues.
>
> This winter I did not see the varied thrush.
> It always seems to arrive too early.
> Sometime in February
> I hear its flutey call in curtained woods herald still reclusive spring.
> Not this year, though,
> unless it came without me knowing.
>
> Claw marks gouge old snow below the feeder.
> No mystery.
> Turkeys passed through, searching
> like robed pedants,
> Not like the absent thrush,
> elusive as its calling.
>
>
>