A breezy Sunday, full of intent talk and laughter, seedlings – onions, tomatoes, nasturtiums – sprouting by the day, leftover rainbow cake from a birthday, the neighbor boy who pogo-sticked down the muddy road.
Sunlight splashing in puddles from melting snow, brilliant as chips of broken mica.
… But once I held
a kingfisher
in my hands,
I touched its blue power.
That may be the only time
I ever do….
– Janisse Ray, “Kingfisher,” in A House of Branches