"Finally, A Breath," by Amanda Cook

Amanda (Duchemin) Cook, '00, lives in the middle of a Southern Indiana woods with her spouse, kids, and one small, clingy dog. Her short fiction appears at Apex Magazine, Apparition Literary Magazine, and Etherea Magazine, and her poetry appears at Kaleidotrope, The Future Fire, and the 2023 Spring Edition of The Fioretti. Her climate fiction novel, WHEN WE WERE FORGOTTEN, won the 2018 Bronze Independent Publisher Book Award for Best Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror E-book. She can be found musing about writing, parenting, art, and life in general at acooksbooks.com.

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Early morning sun rising,

We traipse down the hill

From our house to where

My kid will meet the school bus.

Trees as old as the dirt we stand on

Gossip in the chill March breeze.

I hear the undeniable trumpet

Of Mary Oliver’s wild geese

Flying out of reach overhead.

As though given permission to break

The city’s noise ordinance, the forest

Opens the season’s first symphony with

Flutes tweeting from twigs,

The ting of tiny triangle chirps,

The occasional raucous blast of a corvid.

It’s been months since the woods

Played its morning birdsong, weeks

Since my shoulders dropped this much.

Another reminder of the world still turning,

Of Spring quick on the heels of a harsh

Winter, green ready to burst into melodies

As vibrant as the birds’ morning greeting.

Relieved they survived the night, they

Proclaim to anyone and everyone: I’m still here!

I’m still here.

Hope really is a thing with feathers,

Fluttering against the cage of my chest.