The Language of Cranes

On a March day we first see them
after we park the truck on a quiet rise
above dried fields, blue lip of distant reservoir.

One hundred sand hill cranes,
gray-brown, rusty bodied,
holding high, regal-red heads,

standing in the stubble-edge on thin, black legs,
bending to beak earthworms from spring's damp dirt
or to glean what the rancher left.

Cranes are nine million years old,
older than Colorado's plateau they stop at
enroute to Montana, points further north.
They are ancient birds, keepers of earth secrets.

Like the cranes, I am frugal,
save pearl buttons from old shirts,
store fragrant rinds of oranges,
gather windfall apples in autumn.

It's December when we see the cranes again.
Between road and bare cottonwoods
along the Uncompahgre,

fifty wait in a rancher's field for updrafts
they will rise on, bend southward
on their great, gray wings.

I grieve to think of the cranes leaving.
I want for us to hear them cry with joy and sorrow,
to see them dance at sunrise on their black, ballet legs
and spread their wings like a prayer.