MIGRATIONS

My ladder anchored
in horse mud, manure,
the day I painted
a barn green
I got drunk and lost myself
in the beautiful maya
of paint, till by afternoon
October fields beyond
had aged brightly
with a thousand tundra swan
burbling excitedly
among themselves.
The barn and I tilted
on a floating ladder
when suddenly they rose up
like earth’s vast wing—
ecstatic in their huge
                  migration.

Left behind at day’s end
I climbed down,
the barn a Van Gogh green
and shelter of my praise,
the horses below
already in winter coats
as thick as dreams.