Circulation

Circulation

A nuthatch nests in the old aspen. This morning

her striped face pierced the trunk’s stripped and weathered lines

with a flash of scattered sunlight. Beak and eye sharp

against soft gray, she dropped a curve of dried grass

from the ringed shadow of her home

and slipped inside. Overhead, a pair of cranes

crossed the valley, their slender frames

feathered with creased-mapped stories, offerings

for the marsh. Perhaps this is how every heart 

can return. Rifted from the beginning

life breaks and breaks again, bifurcating

into streams and divides, reaching in new and old

directions. Crane music is as dry as seed rattle 

and as rich as leaf light. Even the aspen sings

across the thin shells with its still, storied heart.

Each falling branch is a dawn.