Spring Song

“Every life            a word the wind turns to say.”

                                                - Tim Seibles

 

Wheels along, the sprite of the Sun

the noon-time eyesore day, our spirits

part and run, the nicks and cuts,

the chrome lids close us in, our spirits.

 

Giving up like this takes too much, says the Cold.

Will you not fall on your knees for me?

Waiting too long takes too much.                                     

I will not come again.

 

That’s the whole reason you are alive!

The summers end! The earth’s tilt!

You make it what it is: the dear day

clearly,          the earth’s faulty tilt.

 

All of this: the sunshine, the day,

all of it, the yellow cresting springness.

The sunlight unafraid; why should we be

afraid when the earth is bounding springness?

 

I am not the cruelest month! says April.

Sweet growth, the slightest precipitation!

I am your favorite lover, the one who comes

and goes, without an invitation.

 

If only I had no will! things might be much simpler,

            my eyelids lighter, lashes standing

quiet, my howl more appropriate, every eye

            brow less attentive, the heart handled,

 

every thing much simpler.

 

Demanding nothing,

even my thumbnail still

reflects the light:

a sign of God still riding the lines

between us,

coaching our bones

to form well

in their places, pro-

tecting even the smallest

berry that hangs

on the vine.

 

as long as it does,

 

all that I’m saying

is you should trust people.

 

When Winter is on retreat            trust

precious daylight without measure gives

herself to us, should we not haste

to do the same?

What kind of love is un-

conditional?

:

the end-less grace,

the will-

less earth.

 

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.