After heavy late winter snows, warm winds

blow up from the south, lifting white clouds

from snowbanks piled high

along walkways, parking lots, streets,

fog so thick it seems the sky has lowered

and we are lifted into it, quieted, expectant

as a sheet of paper or blank canvas

 

We sit on the verandah with earth-filled pots,

fog on the other side of the railing.

I haltingly say, I am on the edge of new words

and at once a flock of small dark birds appears

out of the fog flying straight toward us, 

black marks against all that whiteness,

swings up and over the roof, 

and then gone

 

Voices from the Porch, Main Street Rag