How Will I Go?
Peacefully, I hope, for a change, for those I leave behind.
Peacefully, I hope, during sleep, dream-filled
for a change. I’ll be down by the water as winter
struggles to end itself. At the marina, the perennial
beginning and ending of journeys. Nature’s
throat will be full that day, pine needles bristling,
the river whipped into waves that break against
the shore in what I’ll hear as a rhythmic swoosh
and sploosh, lapping against the last layer of ice
in the inlet, platelets rasping over one another,
rattling like teeth in a shivering jaw. Bare branches
will strobe the setting sun across my face,
ducks and geese returned from their stay away, gathered
on the bank to wish me well as I go.
Migrations
I spotted a small group of Whimbrels today, uncommon sight
here on Cape Cod, even in late August to early September
as they gather to continue their journey to South America, but
what snagged my attention was the more commonly seen
Snowy Egrets—they foraged for food in a manner I’ve never
noticed before. Standing in the shallows of Red River,
they stretched their bodies out flat against the water and held
their beaks just below the surface, opening and closing
them rhythmically, making ripples to entice minnows into
their traps. Devious birds. On the bank, their Great White
cousins posed motionless, ready to strike. This preparation
for a swift, violent thrust is what I sense hanging over me
these days in the world, enough to make me consider migrating
somewhere I can commune with these birds and no one else.
Following Footprints
Gone now that spring walk while the mild winter
continues to hang on, the trail still blanketed
with snow and ice, footing treacherous in spots,
you navigating runoff streams with their mossy rocks,
boots and socks soaked. Trudging along, pausing
for a lone woodpecker’s hammering for bugs,
hearing last year’s beech leaves turned crisp taking
the measure of the breeze, the incessant whining
of a before-its-time mosquito, tiny husks lying flat
on their backs in the snow split down the middle
to disburse their seeds. There you once were,
following the footprints of others, drawn to the ledge
to peer out over the forest and chain of surrounding
lakes, no thought that a fire could take it all.
Jim Tilley has published three full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Billy Collins selected his poem, “On the Art of Patience” to win Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His next poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, will be published in June 2024.