Migrations Poem by Leo Yankevich

Through bleary eyes I hear migrating birds
at morning. Over meadows, down into
the valley of my ears, they follow words
whispered in dreams. And only for this do

I keep faith in the alchemy of rays.
They will return when ice breaks in the river,
when my mind sinks in the mud of May’s
tadpole-like embryo, flock to deliver

their paeans over my salt and pepper hair
as I rise from the shadow of their wings,
my thoughts entangled in a spider's lair,
groping to overhear a bell that rings.