A March Nest
A tilt of the light and I wake with a twig in my mouth, building between the shoots and reeds I’d laid in the quick of instinct, at work between the light. Last night I met my mate, who laid her shape to mine and gave my breath a tide as full as any moon can hold, which rises as I build. I met her as the space I braid to bear the shape I dreamed, who shared my body’s warmth and weave: moss from ruins worked from stone: the jade of lichen flourished from a fallen wand: leaves that gave the dead their shade before they fell, sown as gifts from the old year: the yarn of grasses wound with fur and hair bright with the animal they have shed: feathers lighter than infant breath, bound with the thread of a cobweb teased from a pool of thorns: daub drawn from a spawning pond, wattled with the silk of a sow-thistle, a seed-head blown by the wind: the down of lamb’s ear carded by bees: the soft gold of morning cast in a lost ring. The bulb of the sun swells in the earth I work above, turning the air to smooth the cup for the clutch that makes a chorus in my blood like dawn. Calls pair across the waking wood and ply between my own, for life to come: the sung to, like the singer, unseen.