Airborne

Where I had cleared the heavy, leafy debris

Left by a winter of cold winds

Following an autumn of neglect,

And a summer of mild indifference,

The dried strands of last year’s ornamental grass

Float among the golden pine needles

Fragrancing the spring day

With a memory:

The summer aroma of solitary sunshine in the treetops.

Into this stasis flies a robin

To tug on the dried grass until it yields.

He flies away with it and a few pine needles

And life continues.