These days are a mad gamble,
winter or spring, snow storm or sunburn,
though there is no mistaking
who’s leading the dance.
Overnight the pond ice
is gone. A bird we can’t name
dives below the open water
and we gasp, wondering how long
he can stay under there.
How long have we been under,
holding our breaths, fishing
for something, we know not what.
How long has it been winter?
There is frost in my hair.
Coming up for air, is that what we
are doing? It is hard to not notice
the spells that spring weaves
on the wind—scent of thaw,
scent of emergence, scent of divulgence,
scent of almost green. What are we becoming?
The tulip, it knows what will blossom
at the end of its stem. The jonquil,
the chokecherry, the avens. Are we,
too, predetermined in our unfolding?
I used to think I knew something about
how our story goes. That was before
the spine fell off the book and the pages
fluttered away like so many swooping starlings.
Let’s not try to answer anything. The ground
itself is breaking. The buds are breaking.
The vine is pushing life through what looks dead.
It is not that the prayers worked. It is spring.
