Alert
   
 Here in this winter-wet desert,
 this high plateau time,
 source of the growing year,
 with sand emerging 
 everywhere under
 ghosts of gone ice sheets,
 I walk out,
 scarf flying
 like a prayer flag,
 to find what is new
 and newly returned.
  
 In my ears,
 breezes and birdsound.
 In my nose,
 raw earth thawing.
 In the corner 
 of my eye,
 caught on the edge
 of the concrete street, 
 a tiny silver airplane, 
 a charm.
  
 I pick it up,
 turn over its fleet
 and mysterious edges
 in the thin sunlight,
 and pocket it
 like a true story.
  
 Walking back uphill,
 toward my house, 
 I begin to hum,
 then find something else
 in my mouth—
 voiced vowels
 and edges of words
 linked together
 the way flowing ink
 joins Devanagari script—
 my own song,
 a new one,
 winging me home again.
  
 Leslie Schultz 

Welcome to a new National Poetry Month!

Are any of you also embarked on this writing-one-new-poem-each-day journey? If so, let me know–I salute you! If not, thank you for taking a look at my own discoveries over the next thirty days. LESLIE