V-winged and Hoary

All our pink and gold and blue

birds have gone to Panama or Peru:

the willow flycatcher with its sneezy “fitzbew,”

the ruby-throated hummingbird with jewel-

like gorgets and the blue-rumped finch,

its song a warble with a guttural “chink.”

Far, far across the ghostly frozen lake,

above the great drifts of snow swaying

like dunes, the frosty Iceland gulls,

pallid as beach fleas, make great loops and catfall

into the wind. They are all that is left.

Throngs of children tiptoe deftly

across the lake to watch the robust birds

plunge headlong into kamikaze dives, lured

by fledgling trout nosed against the shallow ice.

Despite the precarious ice,

the children huddle bundled at the edge:

mittened, scarved, and starry-eyed,

their teeth chattering in the frosty air.

They watch the tireless birds, over and over,

fall from the speckled sky, their downy underwings

and pink, taloned leggings

foam soaked as they grapple with their catch.

The children are in love with the miraculous

oval-lipped trout swimming upward for air.

Snowflakes fall against their

cracked lips as they wait, their mouths agape

in little Os at the spectacle of gulls.