February 2023
/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.