Portage Bay

Why the Osprey?
A mother's nature is not to prey,
but three times in spring one circled
while I sat writing her name.

The January of her death, I dreamt
I stood in a yellow raincoat at the edge of our dock
where some commotion had been started
by a blue-green sylph.

I soared toward the house to tell Alfred to come and look
and found her, open-armed, beaming,
wearing a sparkling black evening gown.
"I see you," she said. "I always have."

This November,
the waterlilies are sunk, the grasses peeled back,
the water black, and the dark shapes
of the winter birds remain unidentified.

By some instinct of theirs,
I cannot get closer than forty feet before they fly --
how elusive they are!
But a week ago,

A hummingbird darted across my mood.
I was brooding over something,
and there she was again,
stopped right before me

fluttering her eternal wings.