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.