Each day grows longer as
The year-wheel turns
The maples wear a haze of bees,
Sipping sweetness as
Carmine flowers open on twig-tips
In hope of winter safely past
A bud arises from melting snow,
Tender and swollen with possibility:
Furled petals, tiny folded stamens
Deeper, in the warming soil
The bulb swells to bring forth blossom,
Bright flag of season’s turning.
Birdsongs ring out to call, to court
Feathers brighten to entice
Scarlet, yellow, flower-colors take wing
On warming afternoons, sap rises and
Tree-frogs trill their chorus of desire:
Pick me! Pick me!
Amid the dappled light and shadow
Of her hidden bower
A doe strains and pushes forth
Twin spotted fawns
Sleek, wet and gasping
All long legs and wonderment
The vixen comes forth from her den,
Fat pups behind her
Testimony to the richness of her milk
The warming forest is astir
And fat, unfurling buds
Give promise of the land’s renewal
I, too, emerge to drink the light,
Turning my face like a sunflower
Towards bright Sunna’s disc
Probing dark earth, I lay my seeds
In tidy rows and pray for rain,
Already dreaming of October’s harvest