Blackbird, Blackbird

Spring has come
and left
a deepened shade of green
on all things steeped in dawn
and skyward reaching-
Summer waits behind the morning's crest,
awake and out of sight
beyond its blue and flowered brow.

A sudden laugh of light
ignites the hilltop's haze
an instant,
then rising slightly
echoes streams of joyous notes
and sweet delight
above the hill descending west.

And with the dawn's ascending,
so ascends a once familiar shade-
a shadow,
wings at fullest reach and raking
Springtime's gentle breeze
and breathless sky.

My Blackbird!
Slow and sure your shadow
traces blossomed boughs
of windy leaves and scented pine.
You cast your passing shade, and pleasant,
briefly lasting
slight upon the breathing hills
and spangled streams
alive and leaping.

I upward trace your shadow's path
and placed against the cobalt,
clear
I see your wings are set;
two silhouettes like sails
against a Sapphire sky.

I watch
for ages,
all eternity;
My Blackbird rise and fall,
your shadow's sudden swell and waning.
Your feathered sails together raised
and just as quick their swift retreating-
every movement
cast against the depths of sky.

And just as Summer
sets its stride upon the east,
so my Blackbird downward bounds
to rest its charcoaled crown
upon my welcome bough.