by Ruby Hansen Murray

We watched white flecks, birds
far up against the ridge. Bright
against blue-green, a trick of evening.

Walked to see them, earthbound,
slow, DV creaky, and me ready to spring

forward, these legs strong, but it’s arms
we need, wings. How we’ll fly,

long necks extending,
then folding, so few wing beats,
thermals holding us up.

Great egrets making a way north.
We say, They’re going to a new country.

Seven birds in cottonwood tops
above Cutoff Slough, nesting
for the first time so far north.

Twisting toward each other
as they fall.

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Ruby Hansen Murray is a poet and writer living in the lower Columbia River estuary. Her work is forthcoming or appears in Cascadia: A Field Guide (Tupelo Press), River Mouth Review, About Place, Under the Sun, the Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, and Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA program, she’s a citizen of the Osage Nation with West Indian roots. See www.rubyhansenmurray.com.