(Poem) What cranes taught me by Sara Wright

Migration

When they arrived

I heard the haunting

cries long before

I ever saw them in flight.

Year after year.

When they arrived

a great joy flooded my

body and I was

lifted to the sky –

Joining in the celebration.

When they arrived

 Some stayed

for winter, and

I was filled with a strange

Peace I could not define.

When they arrived

some slept nearby

rising up

from grain fields,

a drop of blood

 on their heads,

 long graceful necks,

black legs dangling,

glorious

outstretched wings

lifting sturdy bodies

skyward, startling

riffles and river waters

that kept them

 safe from coyotes

at night.

When they arrived

a collective call

and something else

I could not name

tore open my heart.

When they arrived

That last year

with my life

gone so strange

and cold,

estranged,

I had lost direction,

 Yet found kinship

among them.

After they arrived

I was always listening.

Each predawn

 before

torturous winds

 could steal

their cries

I walked into

   ‘first light’

arching my neck

backwards

to glimpse

 sacred flight.

After they arrived

 I loved

them with eyes

stung with tears

lacking understanding

but feeling

a holy force

of such monumental proportion

it severed all thought.

My body sang.

Only presence mattered.

On and on the dance went

until one day

 in early February

 one crane

 climbed into

the sky

overhead

 circling,

brring

 goodbye.

Others followed

and all that month

they orchestrated a

 communal gathering.

Once sky born

they soared north

the moment the sun

rose high enough

to warm them.

“Don’t go” a lost child cried.

We loved them so.

 Bereft, I was left  

not knowing what

was lost

beyond the Sacred Voices

  that haunted the sky.

 My skin shrunk

tighter and tighter

against fragile bone.

I could barely stand

the empty blue dome,

a moon that never slept.

I followed

them in my mind.

They headed north,

east and west

Joyous reunions

as migrating kin

met at dusk –

at a fly down.

Resting ,

  rising at dawn

 to sail through the clouds.

Stormy weather

 was always a threat –

gunshots too.

 Some flights

took them as far as Siberia

 to find

  nesting areas

hidden in cattails.

Once relaxed and fed

 maybe the two

who mated for life

 could raise one

chick to adolescence.

Last year only three

small groups

stayed.

The season

was short.

Yet they filled the sky

with their calls

 as I walked into

 gray, scarlet, bruised

purple, blue dawn

blessed by a Grace

that preceded sight

of the small community

 brrrring overhead.

 I wondered then

 who they really were.

These ancient ones

  who soared far east

to reach the

 northeastern tip

of the country

I come from…

For twenty springs

 small groups

touched down

in secret,

danced and bred,

spent several months –

most of the year

in the lush green mountain

lowlands.

Almost no one knew.

Last year

when they left winter behind

I followed.

Voices rose up

from the ground

to guide me. 

I listened for messages

beneath sound.

Finding direction at last

I surrendered,

fearing nothing more

than not being able

to join them

in the North Country

that called

me Home.

(Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright


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