North

For a moment in the calm,
between gusts of wind:
the faint push of air beneath wing.
The northern harrier drifts above
a flowering field of yellow mustard.

Bobbing among the eddies,
the murre learn centuries
of the waterwork and currents,
driven unthinking by what
we cannot know.

Farther still, the north horizon
is choked with fog;
the clover lies trampled by salt wind
along the clifftop.

I turn my face into the sun.
Were it not for some small
burning ember,
I’d have lifted my arms
and fallen into the sea.

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Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce (writing as B. L. Bruce) has been called the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, includingThe Wayfarer Journal, Canary, Northwind…