It’s the honeysuckle’s last days
when her gaping white mouth fades yellow and brown
and her lewd pungency sharpens
like a perfumed widow
gaudy, desperate for attention
It's the time of magnolia’s moist birth pale and secretive bashful of her new beauty of turtles venturing across roads heavy with their motherly yearnings it's the hour of sweet clover, pink and humble of the bumble bee’s loquacity when summer peeks lazily from her bedsheets yawning with flowers when boys with bruised knees chafe and fidget behind their desks as the aroma of lilacs pleas to them wafting through open windows it's the season when the sky dries her tears after weeks of weeping when shy ferns emerge, uncurling darkly and oaks reveal a secret carpet of moss beneath their rugged feet This is not the hour to be practical, to be serious no, these are the days of frivolity and flowers of dalliance and love making May’s maiden, tender and delicate, blossom bright has not yet been tarnished by September’s regrets or aged by winter’s harsh resentments there is only the fierceness of life there is only the swollen green earth the breath of water and earnest skies the morning dew between our toes -- remnants from night’s wet birth birds and blossoms merge in our hearts like two lovers we cannot choose between and colors flush the land like the blood of youth returning to spring’s cheeks the rude blasphemy of asphalt cannot silence the divinity of grass their fervent strands rising up from the hot, fragrant soils yearning toward the sun, still a coy virgin not yet transformed to August’s harsh, round shrew
we dream of what’s to come –
we dream of the sea’s blue sincerity of the bliss of dolphins, of plovers scattered in sand
it’s the time for goslings to wander awkwardly on their new webbed and rubbery feet and the winged and soft creatures to do their life’s labor—
to feed, to tend their young what else is there to do in this world of spring? but to feed our children watch them scamper in delight beneath the comfort of sycamore and locust to make love in sunlight and shade to twitter, chirp buzz and sing among the miracle of plants to walk amidst the throbbing emerald earth?
don’t despair your own fading youth since May – she offers her gifts to you pours forth her nectar for your eyes and for the skin of your hands for your ears and your tongue renews herself before you, again and again offering her bounty and benedictions and we are overcome with the blessings with the many blessings of this life
