April Woods: Morning

Birth of color

out of night and the ground.

Luminous the gatherings

of bloodroot

newly risen, green leaf

white flower

in the sun, the dark

grown absent.

The Finches

The ears stung with cold

sun and frost of dawn

in early April, comes

the song of winter finches,

their crimson bright, then

dark as they move into

and then against the light.

May the year warm them

soon. May they soon go

north with their singing

and the season follow.

May the bare sticks soon

live, and our minds go free

of the ground

into the shining of trees.

Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell. "April Woods: Morning.", "The Finches." Openings (1968) reprinted in Collected Poems 1957 - 1982. New York: North Point Press, 1964. p. 61.