photoart: ralph murreby Mary Wehner
Leaning over the newspaper
this morning, reading a piece by a local
writer on spring, I was startled to find
a reference to a poem, the one
about blackbirds. Just two lines
pulled from the poem’s long, lyrical list,
The river is moving
The blackbird must be flying
missing the rhythmic connections
one makes while reading the thirteen ways
of looking, missing too, you might say,
the underlying impact, and yet,
I can see him at his desk, googling
“blackbirds” looking out the window
of the bright newsroom, down
on the narrow, winding river
with its scrawny willows, listening
for the clean, thin whistle of the redwing.
~ first published in Shepherd Express
