When the last pangs of winter press
famine foods into the tongue like a bit,
the Skagit grants the interior Salish Sea
a kingly portion of its water. Dragonflies
at the corners of my view drip acid color
as I am put to a series of questions—spring
begins when your stride crosses at least seven
daisies in the meadow. I hear the childhood
birdsong we used to mimic in the strawberry fields
so it must be the cross-quarter day between
the equinoxes. What sort of sweetness
will you bring when you arrive and will you
be carrying a bright torch? Skunk cabbage
sentinels coat the swamps—old men in sunshine
shawls with spiney war clubs in the air. The slender
leathery intertarsal joints of the small birds rustle
near my shoulders; the digging pole leaves
its lasting shadow across my palms.
—Laura Da’ (A Dozen Nothing)