Category: Bottles of Hours

Just when you thought she was gone for good,
winter turns, rushes up to you laughing, kissing you
right on the mouth. “Just in case,” she says, sprinkling
her dazzles all over the hillside and trees,
“you haven’t had enough.” And then she’s off again,
this time for good. Maybe. But maybe she’ll come
just once more, bringing more of her magical kisses,

I see you, brave little leaves,
poking up from last year’s survivors
into the late March air even though
the nights still promise more frost.
I understand; I was born early, too.
You can only wait so long before
you just have to make the leap.
Comfort is fine, as far as it goes;
but oh, the irresistible lure
of sparkling fresh adventure!

Now come the waking winds, cold, and strong, and bright
with the light of this fresh, new Spring and full of the scent
of her moisture. Laughing, they sweep away winter’s debris
and glide across all the smooth places. They swirl their way,
singing, through all the trees’ branches, out to the tips
of their bud-swollen twigs, and all the trees sing with them.
Oh, how the trees do sing!

I don’t think the snow bothers them. I think they came well advised and prepared.
But then, I think we all do. If anything, I suppose they’re sending out vibes
that would translate, roughly, to “Oh Wow! Oh Wow!” I’m sure they must be amazed.
But then, I think we all must be, whether we acknowledge it or not.

They call me over, draw me in. Theirs is a jeweled world and everything in it
is a work of art. But then, you could say that ours is the same, looked at
with an unprejudiced eye. I note the colors and the curves of the forms,
the subtlety and the grace. The plants are swathed in spring snow. How lovely!

Once in a while we need to see the wildness
of the sky. It reminds us that it’s on not a screen
(unless some truly humongous being is holding
us–sky, oceans, earth and all–on some screen
in its hands, and that’s as good a story as any,
except, you know, the real one). Nope, not a screen.
You can get in a plane and fly through the sky in this one.
You can stretch out on the grass below and watch the moon.
How’s that for a wonder and a mystery!
Every now and then the sky likes to remind us.
It likes to dramatize the sheer immensity of it all
and how it seems to have no end. And here we are,
watching it, alive.

Go ahead. Bring your snow.
Nothing you can do will stop her now.
The tilt is in and Springtime will unfold
regardless of your spurts of wintry weather.
She knows your moods and tolerates them
with a knowing smile. The maple’s buds
are bursting now, and a robin sings his
mating song from its highest branches.
So snow if you must. Soon enough
we’ll be barefoot on Spring’s green lawns
dancing to the whistling of the peepers.

The moist breeze carried a kindness so deep, she thought,
that it surely came from the Great River of Compassion itself,
riding with it over the rocks of pain, past the shadows on its banks,
around the bend into a sudden shaft of light and understanding,
a knowing that it’s all love. Even the rocks and the shadows.

I wait at the crossing as the train rolls through.
I’m in no hurry; I like the looks of its colors
blurring across the raindrop-splattered windshield
of my car, and its sound, all motion and determined.

A couple miles down the road, I pass the old barn,
once the heart of a dairy farm that served the whole county,
its stories still pouring out all its cracks and doors to say
how you should have seen it when it was in its glory.

Then come the fields and the view of sky, roiling now with clouds,
the neat rows of stubble beneath them waiting to be plowed under
in preparation for the new season’s crop. I can feel their impatience.
Soon, I say to them. Even now, the sun is breaking through. See?

“Hey!” they shouted in their loud yellow voices.
I had seen them as I whizzed past, but I saw them
as if I’d seen them a hundred times before and not,
as was truly the case, for the very first time this year.

“Hey! You! Hey!” As soon as their call reached me,
I stopped the car, backed up, pulled over, turned on my
flashers in case anyone else came by, and leaped out.
“Hello! Hello!” I sang to them. “You are so beautiful!”

They stood there, beaming, glad someone noticed
and pretending they didn’t care if anyone noticed at all.
But their gladness betrayed them. They wiggled with joy
and proudly posed when I asked if I could take their picture.

To speak of some things is to profane them.
I could try to tell you of the symphony that plays
through my body when I am here, in this moment,
in this place, full of the shimmering jade and emerald joy
of emergence from the night. I could try to say
how I am renewed again just breathing this air.
But as I said, to speak of some things is to profane them.
Some beauty is too deep for words.