between the cranes and the green

in late winter or early spring

between the cranes

and the green

the brown world

warms and wakens.

in a single morning,

wheeling and crying,

a hundred thousand sandhill cranes

take to the sky,

create their own north wind,

and leave behind

a warming breeze,

and skies wrung silent.

until the songbirds come.

the eternal sun gleams on bright

brown cottonwood skeletons

pulling up sap from deep roots,

beginning to think about spring.