Hundreds of
White Birds

A poem by Margaret Ellis Hill

spread out like bedding
my mother flings out
to hang on the line to dry.

Even with faint sun and mocking clouds,
whiteness shines against
blue, brown and green.

She casts and recasts the cloth,
before she is satisfied. Birds wave
like rippling sheets to finally settle.

The plowed earth lies fallow
not yet the season for planting.
There seems a reason for seeds.

Fresh linen waits for bodies
to rest, feed with sleep for a while
before rising up to touch the hours.

Margaret Ellis Hill Margaret writes:
We live in a very rural area. It is neat to watch nature change from my office window. Not too far from me are acres and acres of ground, prepared for planting come spring — vegetables, fruits, and corn (when the rain finally stops long enough). Meanwhile, many birds rest on the ground. I hope everyone might see the loveliness in a sheet of white birds resting or eating what ever they can find in these fallow fields, rising up in a body like a mother flinging sheet several time on a bed to make it just right and then landing again. A beautiful and comforting sight.

Margaret Ellis Hill is a native Californian, and her first book of poems, Close Company, was published in 2003 (PoetWorks Press). Margaret's individual poems have appeared in such journals as The Pedestal, Byline, Poetry Motel, Rattlesnake Review, among others, as well as in selected anthologies, including In the Company of Women. Since 2001, she has been honored by being asked to perform at both the annual Houston and Austin Poetry Festivals. Margaret can be reached via email at: Pegleghill@aol.com.

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Hundreds ofWhite Birds

Hundreds of
White Birds