by Suzanne Sigafoos
Willow song: egrets listen and the mossy bank, too, angled, strewn with forget-me-nots, thousands of blue eyes look up to the trestle’s tremble, rails reaching back to the station where a lover runs next to the train - you saw that movie, you’ve been the runner - pistons turn, slow at first then billows of steam; song of the shovel, the coal, fire, velocity. The Iron Horse cleaves the air: coast winds left, gorge winds, right; Mistral, Sirocco, Santa Ana whistle through needles of pines at the timberline as the green, green eye watches you sing: love, here I am, find me and love finds you, or it doesn’t; either way, your next song is: oh, let me live through this storm. A hawk, at meadow’s edge is poised, keen to sing headlong, into tall grass. Dune grass. Sunset.