by Rosemary Dunn Moeller
Along Nantucket Sound at Dennisport where Swan River
runs out into the sea, I watch buffleheads,
far out from shore, who don’t know
we’re cold today, the middle of
winter, wind chill factor
too low to watch for long. Sunshine’s brightest
this afternoon when I step across ice on sand,
that moves under my feet, can’t harden like prairie
sod. We’ve migrated here to where it’s just cold,
to get away from Dakota’s sub-zero blizzard winds.
Buffleheads and I like this season, the somewhat moist
wind that forces me to breathe shallower, adjust binoculars
with hands ungloved, quicker than I thought I could have.
Rhododendron leaves curl but remain green as the ivy
along my porch. Cedars and pines are as faithful to life
as my mate who came here, unwilling, who never left the farm
in winter before this migration; guilty in his recliner reading modern
strategies for bridge, sipping a third cup of coffee, occasionally fidgeting.
I float along cape roads birdwatching, never very far from him.
I might stop for coffee and a sweet chocolate treat
for my farm man,
without fields to check or
animals to feed, new to this
coast, but willing to try to survive
without his prairie, pastures and fields.
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing