Category: Spring 2024

The rain glides down the still bare branches
of the trees, washing them clean for springtime.
The fragrance of spring is in the air now, even though
on days like these, bathed in clouds, the world
looks as much like November as it does late March.
Until you notice the buds bursting open on the trees.
Until you spot the daffodils’ leaves rising from the soil.
Until you notice how this wet, cold air
is brimming with birdsong.
Then you know.

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

The budding trees are dancing their welcome to Springtime,
bless them, as if this dance could be their last. You never know.
Anything can happen, and for all its brilliance and potential, mankind
has once more pushed this spinning world right to the brink.

Nevertheless, today the sky is blue and sap is rising,
and robins dart in little flocks above the fields. It’s true,
what the poet said about hope. It springs eternal. So
let us dance and may the life within us swell in gladness.

Why are we here at all, if not to give thanks?

It’s not like you flip a switch and here it is,
full-blown, with lush greens and tulip blossoms.
Spring is more subtle than that, refined,
you might say. She glides in slowly,
sometimes mild and sunny, sometimes
cloaked in rain and snow. But her light
proclaims what her weather may not say,
and new birds were singing at her dawn.
Keep faith. These are but her first hours.
Spring has miracles up her sleeve.

Like a signature quickly fading,
one last curve of snow lines the road.
One last layer of ice floats on the lake.
The winter-bleached fields wait for the plow.

The transition feels seamless, a gradual flowing
of seasons, one into another. And yet, in this moment,
a robin’s call marks the long winter silence
with its alert: something new comes.

You can never go home, they say. What they mean
is that the place you remember isn’t the same
as what’s there now. Everything changes, you know.
Things put on new faces or disappear. New things
tower from places where there was nothing before.

So when you cruise in, it takes time to get your bearings,
even though this is the place where you were born.
You have to scout around a bit, act the part of a tourist
until the familiar emerges from behind the new mask,
until the memories float up from the fragments time
let stand. They’ll be enough to anchor you.

Home is home, the place where your heart
began beating, where you took your first breath.
You hold what was. It shows you what is.
Together you can make your tomorrows.

What great good fortune, little wood sorrel,
to find smiling there, posing as a shamrock
on this St. Patrick’s Day. Wear what name
you will, your mothy wings so gladden
with their green. And how sweetly you sing
Springtime to our wintered-over hearts.

I’m still a quarter mile from the marsh
when I hear them, the red-winged blackbirds,
the males singing conk-la-ree, the last note
sharp and rising, and the females answering
chak-chak-chak in applause. My approach
alarms the males and they fly from the reeds
to the tops of the budding maples, where
they continue their songs. The sun
is glinting off the waters, the bleached
cattails glowing golden in the light.
A pair of mallards, fresh from my dreams,
floats in slow circles near the far shore.
I stand on the hill, glad as the day
to be here, watching, hearing the song.

Except for the edges of the shaded north slopes
and the deep woods in the hollows, the snow is gone.
In its place, a mat of soggy leaves covers the ground.
But more is happening here than meets the eye.
Stand still and you can feel it breathing.
This is the last of winter’s great inhalation, the pulling
back of its bow. And behind the rain and beneath
the mists, miracles are beginning to leap
from the ground, astounding us.

Nothing got them here but their conviction
that there must be more. Otherwise,
they reasoned, why this incessant pull?
So they let things go as things would go,
not struggling against the heavy dark
or the rigid cold, but following the pull,
pushing through whatever opening appeared
that let them stretch in its direction, never
knowing the pull had its reasons, that
deep within them precious treasure hid.
They knew nothing but the irresistible pull,
and how powerfully it drew them onward.
No wonder, having burst through the soil
into a world of color and sky and song,
they applaud, their tips vibrating with joy.