Still in deep mid-winter despite the unseasonable thaws, how can our thoughts not turn towards spring, towards love? It is the month of valentines, after all…

Palm Warblers and a Yellow Rumped

for Jim

by Susan Edwards Richmond

Through needle shadows and branches whippling

a patchwork floor, a traveler interrupts

the pattern, plants on twig, dandelion bright,

red stippling, cap. Tail bobs, then moves

left to right to make room for another

silhouette who preens and gleans and flickers

through. Another another another.

Then one is black and white, a yellow

handkerchief tucked in a pocket on the sleeve

and a flash on the rump as it spirits away.

Singly, two together then split,

then a wave, from forest floor through

mid-canopy, each a sun-washed citrine.

You are hungry, devouring insects

that alight on my arm, caterpillars

dangling on mid-air trapezes. May

breezes don’t deter you. You are what brings

me out, my early risers, my dawn arrivers,

my sweepers, beamers, and feather dusters,

brightening the dark woods before it finds

its rooted color, before it draws deep

green shades, when the sun and all its dancers

stream through, shine through, flurry, flit, and flirt

with careless, ignorance of your royalty,

you usher in the season.

And I am new each year because you are here.

Susan Edwards Richmond is the award-winning author of two community science adventures for children, Bioblitz! Counting Critters and Bird Count, and the preschoolers science activity book, Science Play. She has published five collections of poetry for adults, including Before We Were Birds, and has organized more than a dozen plein air poetry events. A passionate birder and naturalist, Susan teaches preschool on a farm and wildlife sanctuary in eastern Massachusetts and earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis. She is happiest exploring natural habitats with her husband and two daughters, and learns the native birds wherever she travels.