After the snow
birds swim the sky
wings outstretched, exuberant
warmed by a light drizzle
falling on pear-coloured fields
they drink in a saturated land

Gliding from cedar to spruce
great canopies of army green,
gulls alight from a satin sky
to branches covered in lichen
where pistachio ivy clings

Sweeping over a shrouded sea,
liquorice crows blotch the horizon.
Blackbirds gather
on the arching limbs
of my silver birch tree,
rejoicing
in a melting morning

 © by Máire Morrissey-Cummins.
Used with the author’s permission.