Poetry: Excerpts from Aerie

Hunting the Sun
Hiking the autumn forest with my father
Breathless shouldering both our heavy packs
Through a tonic of rich and deepening color
The labor of sustaining our love somehow
Grows lighter with the swiftness of time
He moves more slowly than I remember
Yet I am content to let him take the lead
Study his shadow in motion over the earth
While kettles of migrating broad-winged
Hawks soar on afternoon thermals
Thousands streaming above the ridge
Hunting the warmth of the sun
Dog Spirit
Weary of every pursuit, poetry and life stale
What helps most is to take a drive with Oshie
A yellow Labrador who rides on her haunches
Muzzle twitching out the passenger window
Seining the wind’s secret trove of scents
Supple velvet ears flopping aloft as she kisses
Joy in the moment without consideration
My canine companion in love with the world
Peering out as if every common bird in flight
Opens an immense world of delight
Cranes
Twilight on Easter morning I was excited
To show my 19-year-old daughter
A pair of mating sandhill cranes
Shale feathers soft as woodsmoke
Scarlet head patches like embers
As they leapt their courtship dance
Through a mist of vernal snowmelt
By the time we quickly drove back there
Like her whole childhood the cranes
Were drifting away into the willows
Root River Current’s coverage of the arts is made possible, in part, by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.