Ralph Murre: MARCH 19TH, BAILEYS HARBOR

The sound is a blackbird, forever clearing its throat, like the morning-after chanteuse of a smoke filled club. A barking crow. A crowing dog. A cardinal calling for love as if a red shirt isn't enough. There's a rattle of pick-up trucks bound toward morning coffee, the discussion of March Madness and no work, yet the light has an angle of promise. A trickle of snowmelt and an old woman scrub at little corners of big problems, and the town yawns, if a town can yawn, into grudging wakefulness. The ice is mostly gone from the lake.
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a blackbird
in all its darkness
a bright wing
.

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by Ralph Murre
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin