The bright-winged warblers will
leave soon, south for their wintering
grounds, away from their twig-woven nests,
the cool forests of hemlock and oak,
their eggs cracked open,
fledglings gone.
I know how silent the woods will be
for the loss of their song.
Another woman waits for
them under the tropical sun;
who looks for the slightest dip of a
frond in the crown of the palms,
the flit of drab feathers,
the buzz of recognition.
They come silent-throated among
the coffee plants. She will rejoice
to know they lived to return
by the light of the stars,
that she lived one more year
to greet them.
Poem by Patricia Thrushart
Poet and author Patricia Thrushart has published three books, Little Girl Against The Wall, Yin and Yang, and Sanctity: Poems from Northern Appalachia, with a new book, Inspired, forthcoming from Mammoth Press. Her work appears regularly in The Watershed Journal, a regional literary magazine of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and on the websites Dark Horse Appalachia and North/South Appalachia. Her poems have been published in Tiny Seed, Clarion University’s Tobeco, The Avocet, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Feminine Collective, Curating Alexandria, High Shelf Press and included in the Northern Appalachia Review. Her first historical nonfiction book, Cursed: The Story of Marion Alsobrook Stahlman, will be published in October of 2021 by Adelaide Books, New York.