HERMIT THRUSH

By Laurie Rich

A yodeling of wood nymphs

counters the primordial whine in my spine

as I ride through their web of sound in the trees.

Unknown aliases, magicians ripe

with the full scale of musical degrees.

The circumference of this year’s clutch of hermit thrushes

fills the deep wood havens of the stranger species

with a subliminal yearning in endless song.

Long before dawn, I saddle the roan.

Horse and rider break on together

in the early morning frost.

Over the whole of creation,

all the lines of generation

fostered in the woods

are on the lookout.

Stilted, stiff from the cold,

the pony unfolds my path before me

in God’s hands.

Frozen to the reins with feeble aching

though the rocky way foretells

the creepings of the previous night.

Backbreaking spring morning

Animals caught in the late snow.

Lambs lost. Ewes blatting.

Distant wagons stuck in the mud.

Human cussing.

Laurie Rich

And hermit thrushes

topping off the ridges of windswept scree,

bellowing in chorus

the most immaculate yearning song.

Such a glory from the woods

that an upright creature

is brought down to his knees in earnest

with each heralding blast.

Horse and rider are engulfed,

one body, one spine.

So full of comfort from the unrelenting silence

as the last gray mantle of morning passes on.

A victory in the underbrush.

All hail to the little hermit thrush

who tantalizes everything alive

with the lilt of his heavenly song.