Janice Hale-Hobby

THE GLEANING

They roost in shallows of darkness,
Carvings of stone in shifting silence.
Then in a massive ripple of wings,
The river casts them out.
On sunrise, they soar,
Great gray kites,
The sandhill crane.

I know their clamorous voices,
Their mating dances,
These heralds of Spring.
I know their sweeping sky-dives
To do the farmers' gleaning.
In fields of wind-blown stubble
Come migratory farmers avian,
Waking worms from winter slumber
To gather the millennium.
They gather still,
While we become endangered species.