After my brother died,
I started seeing
Sandhill Cranes—
or I started noticing them.
They’d fly over my house,
stand in a field as I drove past,
or I’d hear their call on the wind.
I don’t know which comes first—
the thoughts of him,
or the birds themselves.
And while they aren’t flashy like angels
this is our conversation now–
my thoughts reach for him
and he speaks through the birds.
Green, how I want you green.
Passing sod fields on the way to school
had me dreaming to fence it in with white boards,
a square of grassy pasture for my not-yet horses.
I’d play Legos with my brother in the basement
and claim all the green plates
perfect smooth fields for the plastic horses.
As an adult, I roped off my front yard
another place to turn loose my horses
to graze on a patch of green.
Now my sick horses are boxed into small dry lots,
my pasture grows green with too-sweet grass,
uncropped, uneaten.
