Robin Time

The feather
on the sidewalk
could have come
from any bird.

I want it to be
from a robin.

It’s time, I think,
for spring:

they’ve been gone a long while now
(although it’s a lie
that they all fly south; I’ve seen them in packs
among the bittersweet vines
in Harwichport
in deep December),
and they rarely appear
this early in the city,

I’d like to think that
one made an exception for me
and me alone,

knowing I need the mud-time
badly right now.

I want to have my feet sink into
what was once frozen
and come out sucking and black
with heavy dirt,
because that way I could feel
like a farmer
tuned into the signs
and signals of newness,

and that bird would be telling me
things only I needed to know
as I knocked off the sludge
and smiled.