Also true, an oriole flew half the earth
to land on half an orange

outside it rains
while inside the museum, people
round the corners room to room
exclaiming
at each new view, pausing
to sit on benches, transfixed,
basking in Pacita’s colors
like turtles in sun

a string of shiny metal signs
lining a Chanhassen highway, purple
fanfare of hepatica in complementary hues for
Prince, still making music that transcends the form,
working out the fingering of a tricky bridge
between the final choruses,
between ephemeral
and eternal

three newborn bison calves
restoring prairie by their
very presence, standing safe
in the sheltered space beside their
mountain mothers

each successive wave of waterfowl
coming in to rest, feeding in the flooded fields
and other temporary ponds,
whole flocks of songbirds descending
from the sky into the prior quiet
of stream-carved coulees

these white-throated sparrows
stopping to bathe in shallow pools,
dozens on dozens dunking their heads
and shivering wet wings, the forest floor
erupting in fountains of
their light-caught spray, like children
whirling sparklers
on Fourth of July; dozens more
rustling the gullies and foraging
on the hillsides: leaping, raking through
deep-drifted leaf litter with shocking
pink legs, the blessed opposite of
everything

Tomorrow, go to listen while
the leopard frogs still sing, improbably
persisting for two hundred million years
by charming mates
with drawn-out snores
and chuckles

trust in the perfection
of a cedar waxwing, the surprising
heft and counterbalance offered by
a single tail feather, its tip
dipped in Crayola yellow.

———
Additional image notes: Visitor at Walker Art Center Pacita Abad Retrospective and Hepatica at Brown’s Creek © Laurie Allmann.