Harbingers

I'll be sharing this poem at the next poetry meetup at Tate Street Coffee House.  It is the favorite of my own poems, written September 16, 1996:

Harbingers

She is anxious for spring,
this little red-coated dog,
the same as I when,
out on our walks,
under cover of the clouds,
a February sky breathes
dampness down upon us.
Our six feet measure moisture
in the mingled earth,
where Carolina clay
makes mud cake casts,
a temporary mark of our passage.
Our bodies presage the season,
absorbing the wet and the chill--
all the remains of winter--
joining the porous earth
in heralding, becoming the spring.