In Praise, Ephemera
Rent from DeepDyve- In Praise, Ephemera
At dawn feeding swans, upendedby the ice shelf, black beakschamping half-thawed weeds,
draw us to the riverbank. Grizzled feathers,echo of boot steps over rotting snow. Far between,few, tundra swans step out on late ice.
Glacial melt, snow melthustle downstream—ice dams hold tight
jostled swathes of half-lace ice.Knife-edged narrowleads open, sliced river swollen.
Muskrat and beaver gnawnew shoots of red willow,open winter lodges. Fresh water, air.
Pollen, lavish, carpets thequick and the dead, blessing therevived, blessing the remade.
Season of cold broken. Season of ice broken. Season oftattered shirtsleeves. Bare handsuseful again after burrowing all winter.
Voles gather first shoots of new grasses,weave fresh sheaves to put by, chew new roots, shoots, andxylem, drunk on the season's sugars risen
yesterday and today, this hourzipping by, lifting off, wild swan in clear sky. [End Page 25]
Peggy Shumaker's memoir, Just Breathe Normally, is available from the University of Nebraska Press. She teaches in the low-residency Rainier Writing Workshop and savors the view of the Chena River from her window in Fairbanks, Alaska.
