It's a Slow Dance

It's a Slow Dance

The trees are posing majestically 

In a standing salutation

Reaching, reaching, limbs akimbo 

Spring has come this day.

The maples spark up to the sky

This is their time

Festooned in red

They proclaim the ancient revival.

The oaks are waiting for the sun

To coax their sap
To rise, to shine
To layer wood upon their girth
More patiently than the growth below;

Sassafras saplings gather green
While tangy spicebush stand in the damp
Dogwoods open, blush, and show
As daggered greenbrier ramble about,
All flashing bright and verdant bold
In their romance with our brightest star.

This is a dance your welcome to
The steps are slow, the pace is honest
To see them move and gambol about
Sit patiently, with open heart
Beneath a woodland tree.

-P. Sanderson

Spring's Bosom

It is said
That after the storm one blossoms,
Although the only guarantee
Is there is no guarantee.

Personally speaking
Storms leave big messes,
Stunned survivors,
Looking forward to starting
From square one, again.  Sigh…

Winter can side-step any budding spring.
Any puddle-product mosquito worth her wings
Can confirm.
Blink and you’ll miss it.
…
There, you missed it.

All that’s left
Is her red hot itchy calling card.

Snow mounds
Blizzard born,
Slide into the gutter
With little pomp
Given this circumstance,
No fragrance
No flower,
Yielding only a crop of wet shoes
And anguish.

So, no corsage to the formal,
Riders on the storm.
And who said we must embellish
Spring’s bosom anyway?

After the tempest
One might consider looking for
A steady stem
Lowly but hopeful.

Twigs speak more hopefully
Of the future.

Spring Snow

This spring snowfall does not bother me…
No not at all.
I am not inconvenienced,
Unlike the birds,
Migrant guests who arrived on time
Only to find their rooms not ready.
And it appears that they will make do,
And survive within their world of deeper wisdom.
Such trusting souls.

Spring is such a relative season
A time of arrivals and departures,
The heat of the sun struggles with the cold
Of darker days,
The story of creation ongoing,
As the earth wobbles its winding way
Leaving us with weather filled with a high degree
Of in-betweenness.

Spring looks both backward and forward
I see that now.
So on this morning
And at this moment
I will not struggle in the in-between,
Rather I will choose to be mindful of its wonder
This heat and cold
These flakes and feathers
and be grateful for such gifts.

Late Winter

The storm covers the willow buds

And crocus blossoms

With its churlish chill.

The first flakes in their solo dances

All lace and frozen spindrift

Late of the Atlantic

Are now accumulating,

Bending boughs

Marching madly

In great unison chorus lines,

Dampening the hope of an early spring and

Forwarding for another day

This wanton winter swell

And the story of such days

Somewhere in between.

Prelude to Spring

A passing shower brings
A prelude to spring.
It dimples and pocks the lake
Creating self-healing divots
Craters and canyons
Painting and sculpting and painting again
The grey liquid canvas.
Watch closely or you might miss it as
The eye jitterbugs from near shore to far
Wanting to register
Each drop as it strikes
A visual cacophony of
Low rollers circling and radiating
Brothers and sisters
Born from above
No two seem  alike
(Though there is
A strong family resemblance).

A sudden burst bring more and more
Radiating circumferences
Shoulder by shoulder
Crossing and blending these
Fluid Venn diagrams,
Now being studied by mallard mathematicians
Paddling across the pond
Wondering if dinner is included with this show?

 Soon, a drier wind sweeps
The grey palette clean
Shape-shifting the water,
With a pause and a stillness,
An ephemeral epilogue
Waiting for the rain to return
Once again.

Springtime Maple

The maple stretches far out over the pond,
Though rooted deeply in the nearby hill side
It is telling us, it seems
That it likes to keep its feet wet.
And so it is doing well
Where fate has planted that one glorious seed


Springtime maple at Long Pond
 

From which it sprouted.
-Some others have also prospered
While countless have floundered-
All things not being equal
When wind wills seeds to fly.
 
Today the seeds are just a dream
A plan within the springtime scheme,
The buds will drop and soon go by
As the sun creeps higher in the sky,
From pond to limb to pond once more
As trees can change from rich to poor,
And flow from life to life each day
And on it goes by nature’s way.

 

 

 

The Real Thing

It's the real thing.

I held a goldfinch in my hand,
It was a hopeful spring day,
The seed that he had gambled for
Still held tight in his bill.
I, the man of see-through glass
He, the bird of see-through air...
It was a grave misunderstanding.
I made a cup of love for him with my hands
As he melted away
Like a lump of coconut oil in my palms
He took some of life's sad poisons
With him.
He was the kind king,
The king of the maples.