A small cloud on the cliff
above the railroad tracks—
the shadbush is in bloom.
As I drive up the hollow on
our one-lane road, a red-tailed hawk
passes me going down.
All the spring ephemerals are emerging,
leaves wrinkled and damp
like freshly pitched tents.
The first warm day.
The mountain hums with insects
and the valley with motorcycles.
Between twists of old coyote scat
and dried grass curled
tight as pubic hair,
close to the ground, the trailing
arbutus’ fragrant parts
begin to open.
In small, murky ponds
that appear each spring
along the ridge crest,
dozens of wood frogs
float through the reflected treetops,
lust blatting from each fat throat.
Get too close and the show stops.
Another step and they vanish
into strings of bubbles.
The March winds
have blown wet snow
sideways against the trees—
look in one direction
and the woods are white;
in the other, brown.
The snow sticks to our boot soles,
lifting like lids
from jars full of spring.
First phoebe of spring.
He flutters in front of me,
drawn by a slow fly.
In my email, a copy
of a tintype portrait
I sat for last August—
that still moment
five seconds long,
that black box.
The first greens
out of the ground are rockets:
dame’s-rocket, garlic mustard,
winter cress where it’s wet.
Then come the wild onions
up at the wood’s edge—
but not yet. I stand watching
a dark spot in the field that fails
to turn into a bear.
Having melted the snow above it,
a black stone glistens
in its pit.
All thaws seem abrupt.
Lichens slicked with meltwater
glow a lurid green.
I’m feverish—might I, too,
burn a hole
clear through to spring?
tree upended
made to flower downward
into the dark sky of the dead
who feed & return
who stand in circles
& spring after spring resprout
leaves of malachite
Wind flower
open book
wheel that shares an axle
with the earth
your wild moods
are mead
to a solitary bee
let’s take all spring
to read the road
I like the smell of Lilac in the winter,
You like the smell of mint in the spring.
Looking for the woman
from my dream last night.
Her eyes were the Cuyahoga River,
and her touch was
the first drop of unfrozen rain to fall on your shoulder
in the beginning of Spring.
It is spring; a tree flowers.
You may love it
You may hate it
You may fail to notice it.
Nothing matters to the tree;
To flower in spring
Is in the nature of the tree.