Spring has officially sprung (as of the 19th, really) and this poem of Keith’s is the perfect piece to conjure the spirit of the season. Enjoy.
Spring Tumbles Anew from Slush
Each flake busted in like a little mountain,
encasing in cold, longing vegetable corpses
all ready to join the living in spring warmth
per custom cited in every local garden book.
So hurriedly seized, as hurriedly deliquesced
on orthodox cue as air bubbles up from below.
We feel tingles, but hear both pops and smacks
of joy, the smell of mud striving with the melt:
tendrils uncurl, sliding up to slippery twirl
rose hips aged orange
red and yellow dogwoods bud
purple blackberry vines
clamp bronzed cedars
opalescent horseflies neigh
Ever-curious, hatched right to hungry, eager
for buoyancy permitting them radical choices,
astute robins enter as if by stage direction
cunningly unwritten, breathtakingly in tune
with planetary law, with music of the spheres.
Cabin fever primes my detonator,
floods the vacuum universe with word bursts,
splotched, fused and spattered with galaxy light,
hoops shade as if of crinoline
tufts gurgle with new aromas
caterpillars undulate
deer pad ancient paths
saplings rise into forest space
every root electric in reverence,
passion holds trembling beneath every leaf.
—
Keith Moul has written poems and taken photos for more than 50 years, his work appearing in magazines widely. His chapbook, The Journal, and a full-length volume, New and Selected Poems: Bones Molder, Words Hold were recently accepted by Duck Lake Books. These are his ninth and tenth chap or book published.