Mourning Cloak

The thaw begins with a drip,
builds to a roar, subsides to sunlight
prisms playing over silver eddies

brushing still-wet velvet wings;
maroon and yellow, neon blue,
pseudo-bark underneath

in the clear-cut, pink fireweed
pierces a sky alive with souls
reveling in their last year on earth

sampling nectar with newly-curled
tongues while summer degrades
to fall, burrowing in the cool

damp cord of fir put up for winter,
awakening in spring, tasting early
summer before the reprieve

is over, time come to fold
worn and battered wings, to slip
free of this mourning cloak and rise.

Faith

Cormorants face east
to blood-rimmed clouds
holding the morning hostage

angled wings await
silver resonance humming
through weighted bone,
bound by eternally rising sun.

Azure Spring

sun dries pale
whorled wings

the breeze teases
elevating blue

spring rises
yellow and hazy

with sex, frantic
primal propagation

a brief flush
of perfect intensity