Greg Maddigan

Unexpectedly,
pelicans.
They arrive in untamed formations, celestial
accordions, from the green refuges of the deep west.
They rise and fall on
air drafts, like the unseen levers of the past
that move our conversations.
We both wonder how it might have been different had
you stayed.
Maybe, in all the after-years, all we needed
was to share this little canoe, to glide through the soft weeping marshes,
listening to the pelicans winging.
Their white feathers, tips
dipped in black like our consciences,
play the music
of our gaping wonder.
We half-expect the birds to turn into
silken handkerchiefs, or red plastic roses, or warm white rabbits
pulled from the blue sleeve of sky.
But instead they drift up the valley
to the north,
like forgiveness,
right before our very eyes.