DIANA HAYES

Winter Solstice at Barrow—Utqiaġvik    
71.2906° N, 156.7886° W				

Daylight reappears in the disguise of featherless birds.
You dream of migration.

I have considered the rough edge of your voice
the slow flight of your words

the tattered rhythms of your wings
and this I know:

sixty-four days of darkness at the North Slope 
next to the Beaufort Sea—the snowy owl remains.