On the Cusp of Spring

It’s been years now since you drifted

into the silence    years since you dug

a bed in the snow for us

since we lay down    your tail over your nose

your forepaw over my shoulder

the blue of your eyes unreal unreal

and the stars

the stars played their tricks with time

and space    years it’s been

or perhaps we’ve not met yet

not eyed one another warily

nor made our constellation of two    Canis Minor

not yet risen    not yet

perhaps we haven’t parted

those last days still to come

 

on the cusp of spring

snow becomes water once again

running

 

perhaps that is why I think of you

the way you ran    blue-eyed

as water when I was winter.

Julia McCarthy is originally from Toronto. She is the author of two poetry collections: Stormthrower (Wolsak & Wynn, 2002) and Return from Erebus (Brick Books, 2010), which received the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award. She lives in rural Nova Scotia and is at work on a new collection.