Mornings we see our breath. Weeds
sturdy for winter are waiting down
by the tracks. Birds, high and silent,
pass almost invisible over town.
Time, always almost ready
to happen, leans over our shoulders reading
the headlines for something not there: "Republicans
Control Congress"--the year spins on unheeding.
The moon drops back toward the sun, a sickle
gone faint in the dawn: there is a weather
of things that happen too faint for headlines,
but tremendous, like willows touching the river.
This earth we are riding keeps trying to tell us
something with its continuous scripture of leaves.
"Reading the Big Weather" by William Stafford, from Scripture of Leaves, ©1999, Brethren Press.
