the redbud is shedding petals
over the poppy bed like an excited flower girl,
bright fuchsia buds caught on soft fuzzy leaves.
All articles filed in spring poems
shining
the forsythia has been slow to bloom this spring,
green leaves creeping up its tangled branches
and unfurling with no sign of flowers at all.
dwindling to dust
the butter-yellow tulip
has now faded to cream,
streaks of rose gracing
the pale petals as they
bend back toward the earth.
the first tulip bloomed today,
golden as butter,
and i wished i could show you
its delicately frilled petals
i wish you could show me the spring
i wish you could show me the spring —
wildflowers waking up on the creek bank,
catkins greening at the slender ends of oak branches
purslane
in spring the purslane
pops up underfoot
dressed for spring
midway up the hill
the neighbor’s weeping fig
is dressed for spring
a gown of bridal white blossoms
shielding leafless branches.
the lily bed
if i had any rage i took it out on the lily bed and its web of ingrown roots the fruit of thirty years of spawning tigers i scythed and hoed, slicing through sod separating innumerable worms from their other ends and cleaving through the rusty orange roots that choked the ground until, at last,…
Read Moreprelude
the sharp blade pierced the greening grass
and shovelfuls of soil revealed wakened worms
shrinking away from the light
skeptical soil
ten trees arrived in the mail today
their tender trunks scarcely more than twigs
but already I was imagining the bank
of white blossoms in the spring —
hawthorne, dogwood, crab —
and the pale hellebores i’d bought
that would start blooming in the snow