A poem for a snowy April 3...

It's SNOWING! It's April 3rd, and it's snowing! This shouldn't surprise me; I had planned a big bash for my 30th birthday on April 16, 2007, and we had to cancel it due to an icy-sleety-snowy-mess falling from the sky. April in New England means snow, rain, snow in the morning then 55 degrees in the afternoon like yesterday...you get the idea. So in honor of April's weird weather issues, I give you this poem by Mary Oliver.


White-Eyes
                                            
                                            
In winter
    all the singing is in
         the tops of the trees
             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
    shoves and pushes
         among the branches.
             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
    but he's restless—
         he has an idea,
             and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
    as long as he stays awake.
         But his big, round music, after all,
             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
    In the pine-crown
         he makes his nest,
             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
    I only imagine his glittering beak
         tucked in a white wing
             while the clouds—

which he has summoned
    from the north—
         which he has taught
             to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall
    into the world below
         like stars, or the feathers
               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
    that is asleep now, and silent—
         that has turned itself
             into snow.


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