Spring, and spring of her life also. She walks
to water to stand behind sedges, thinking of snakes.
And snakes come. First one, lazily, tail
sculling, head high, counterclockwise along
shore, and then another. And then -- another.
All going, she notes, the same way round. Next day,
incorrigible child, she rigs a black fly rod
with stout green line tied, butt end and tip end:
a snare. Back to the sun-long lake. The snakes
continue their rounds. She casts loop, she waits.
One comes, riding high in clear water, black eye
bright. Caught, the looping, livid thing
bends the rod double almost. On close inspection
she speaks its given name: common water snake.
Proudly she touches the twisting ribbon of flesh,
Spring springs upon her unawares;
Perhaps she thought snow would drift
Right up to her window, as it should
In February, as in her memory
No such month escaped some white.
Going forth in a sleeveless shift
She pockets up seeds for flats,
Pulls out dank bins of soil,
Reaches for small pots, sets hope
In light. Such April ploys are
Not to be counted on, she knows --
Guessing random frosts
Still may spring upon her unawares.
That time when there is yet nothing,
Her skills being at rest, synchronized
And sympathetic with soil's sleep --
Timid buds of lilac or jonquil still
Tucked within themselves -- she wonders
If she's even a subsistence woman, is
Mistaken in that as so much else, as when
Even deep snow cannot efface what
Winter erases when it is nearest spring.
Her hands stretch to packaged seeds;
Enter into bargains with their quietude.
Now? Now? Now? Now? she asks them,
Though she knows they will not move.
Here by a cold window she spreads
Envelopes on her table: peas, beets.
Radishes will be first, nearest the house.
This time of year that room is not much visited.
Its herringbone-patterned floor of worn bricks
tilts here and there where rodents have made inroads.
Homemade flats lie heaped in corners; stacks of cells
lean sleepily together; insulation dangles;
tools hang, festooned with webs and dust. Sometimes
when the door has been set ajar, a towhee wanders in,
becomes confused at light from so many windows,
beats itself silly, then rests, is eventually found
and shown the way out. There's not much
an old lady can do but wait, watching for
earlier suns to rise, for petrichor,
for that sudden dislocation brought on
by stepping into sunshine by a southern wall.
Then, after one jonquil blooms by way of
What she will do today is walk and take in
Hand her apple staff, leaning on it
As she does now, more and yet more
The nearer arriving to a last heart beat
She comes, and check for vegs and berries.
Here are yet more peas; she's not as
Eager for them as three days ago.
With a bit more busy-ness, she'd go
In for blanching those. Onions and
Leeks too small yet; almost out of
Lettuce; tomatoes on the other hand
Doing well, and some ready already.
Oh, she could cut kale, collards or chard
This morning like any late spring morning,
Only she's hungry for something more.
Do what she will, there are yet no pears,
She moves in spring
as one who
has carried herself
all winter among
famous people.
Yet she does
her own housework;
knows, as her
ancestors knew,
to spread white wash
over rhododendrons
in bright sun, like
remnants of snow —
glimpses, which some
have seen, of
the mountain,
Trees are shy brides.
During spring
they wear their clothing
in the dawn of the day
before we awake.
During autumn
they take off their green dresses
late at night
while we are still asleep.
A flock of a hundred or more crows
In echelons of three or four
Were flying obvious search-patterns
Over a square mile of wet, recently ploughed
Country in Perth County, Ontario;
In spring so cold you might still call it winter.
There was no missing the fact of
Their intent to find what was to be found
For their provision. Without lamenting
The shortage of life's commodities,
They looked for food with such sure diligence
That discovery was a certainty;
For which they would pay neither taxes or rent.
If you haven't heard the robin's dawn song
You're a poorer man than you ought to be.
Up early once, by a small factory
Alongside which an elm tree was growing
Vibrantly in one of its early springs
With about two hundred heart-shaped leaves
Green as if it had just invented them;
I heard and saw a robin in the tree
Emit I'll swear in one protracted chord
With not a one I could label discord,
A note for every new leaf on that tree,
As if each leaf issued another leaf
Of spiritual stuff, metallic as well;
Brilliantly shone, etched with one perfect word.
It was that time of the year, cold and bleak, old dry leaves still on the ground, patches of snow
lingering everywhere in the landscape. I had passed the old cemetery hundreds of times. This
time there was a hint of sun.
early spring
rust down the side
of a gravestone
When snow, which veils the slumber of lakes
Withdraws in mist and the speckled earth
Is damp with leaves’ regenerative breath,
I return, as I must, where the willows
Rebelliously fly their green banners
Against the perilous Canadian clouds.
When mist, which hails the warming of earth
Raises its skirt over moss bordered streams
I come with new love in the fold of my arm,
Regard how white violets kiss the new sun.
For us the long winter was frozen endurance
And dreaming of love through the trackless stars.
I am the river, I have been immense
With hope, great as the inner heart of spring-
The reeds have huddled to my whimpering
Amid the noon-time's staleness and suspense.
Between the ruins of magnificence.
Stained and autumnal, mournfully I sing,
And then among my white beards muttering
Grow old, and sleep into indifference.
I have no returning, onward is best.
Close to the dark, sweet earth in every place.
But with the sky's mark hidden in my breast.
And a star's shadow falling on my face.
Where shining spaces wait to fill with me,
Death is the beautiful and bitter sea.