About Time (1)
If only crocuses were honest
in their opening, not this tease
for a season unready
to arrive, frost still biting
what isn’t yet green.
But the ravishment
of purple, we all want it—
to be dirty with newness,
pulsing in air we don’t yet know
is lying. This morning,
the onslaught of longing—
his tongue on my nipple-hard
breasts, his salt on my cheek,
his brazen fingers
in my hair, asking. The answer
always yes. Oblivious
to first blooms and
what they pretend.
About Time (2)
And suddenly it’s late November. Another
birthday closes in. They come fast. Countable
by scores and scars. Now, everything timed—seasons, sleep,
distance to destination, the Thanksgiving turkey roasting
in its juices. And I can’t pretend I’m still summer-dirty,
green with want. Oak leaves sharpen before they fall.
Woodsmoke and pine thicken the air. Even wrapped
in wool, I’m cold. And refuse to rake the lawn.
Let the wind rearrange what’s fallen.
I take the path to the reservoir. Breath visible.
Lungs aching. Skin blued in weak light. The sun pinks
the sky for hours after it disappears. A small consolation.
But those umber leaves quiver in the trees, as if
deciding what to do. As if there’s a choice.
Flocked
thousands of Arctic terns fly just above the water
like whitecaps on the dark sea
until the wind shifts lifts them into ribboned echelons
birding the equatorial sky
they’re halfway to Antarctica
halfway through a pole to pole journey
an entire species following
summer’s abundance of fish light calm
when tired they settle on the ocean’s surface
rest for a few hours
a braided rope silvering the sea
carried by the current until
they take flight in a chorus of splash and wingflap
red-beaked calls shrill the air
a vast canvas of onward
what is it to be flocked
wings beating to a rhythm
other than one’s own
always touched
by the breath of another
Anne Hampford lives in Connecticut. Her poetry is informed by her love of nature, animals, and wandering. She has traveled to six continents and can fake her way through several languages.
Read four more poems by Anne Hampford also appearing in Terrain.org.
Header photo by Krasula, courtesy Shutterstock. Photo of Anne Hampford by Frédérique Tiéfry.
