Backyard Princess

And in the days ago when,

as the onion grass began to start again,

the whole green began again in the yard, the

Spring began on the floor of the world,

(came out of hiding, out of nowhere!)

on the new buds of old trees,

I ran on and on with bare feet.

All the Spring months, all season my birthday,

all of a day and a yard all to myself:

my whole life.

I swung over the lawn through the Spring;

the swing and my feet flapped like a

bird wing while the fullness of my ratty mane

flowed against and with the air, the cool

current I created, there was no guard

to stop my fall, only the gravity, only the push

and pull.

And my girl-thoughts, “I will remember this moment for-

ever” (I had decided I could take pictures

with my whirling mind – if I blinked hard enough the

pictures of time would last and I remember

those days, even now:)

The blooming dogwood dreaming 

of its own death, (I watched it die years later;

they chopped it down), there were green

vines wrapping wooden fences up in their long arms,

fine daffodils like yellow purséd lips,

forsythia bushes bursting forth,

the earth’s golden frizz, a buzz of bees,

and a lone rose tangle near the rotting shed

(that’s gone

now too);

The whole of the yard, my palace, my life;

the dogwood branch, a throne

I perched upon and surveyed the wild

Kingdom of the Yard, for just a short time

ruling over the lawn, for a short while

in charge of everything that moved or grew.