Spring speaks a language
with only present progressive verbs—
just today as I walked into blue sky
turned blizzard, I attempted translations
into English with words such as flusterizing,
mirthing, tizzying, and unguarding,
but none of these seemed quite right.
As soon as I felt I had touched
something true, the moment
was already changed.
In Springese, there’s a word
that means both destroying
and flourishing. And another word
that means both grieving
and rejoicing. I felt my heart
leap up in glad recognition—so familiar
it is with unrepentant paradox
that the clumsy tongue can’t master.
They seemed to have a profound conversation,
my heart and spring, that my brain wanted
so much to decode. It could not,
but the snow was heavy and cold and wet
as it fell on my warming cheeks,
my rising chest, the greening grass.
And though it was clearly
inadequate, the brain settled
for this gloss, God, its so good,
so damned good to be alive.