SPRING POEMS

[d's girl]

Spring just awakens me on so many levels. It heralds in sunshine, warmth, flowers, new life, hope,

joy, inspiration, a renewed vigor & imagination.

Please use this thread to share your own or others' poetry about spring & please feel free to post

any spring pics or graphics, too!

If it's someone else's please give them proper credit.

I am just discovering Mary Oliver & am enamored with her work, so I'm sure I'll be posting a lot

of her poems.

[d's girl]

Such Singing in the Wild Branches (2003)

It was spring
and finally I heard him
among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness—
and that's when it happened,

when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree—
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed

not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them

were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last

for more than a few moments.
It's one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,

is that, once you've been there,
you're there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?

Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.

— Mary Oliver, "Such Singing in the Wild Branches"
Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays,
Beacon Press, Boston, 2003, pp. 8-9

[darroll]

He didn't like the casserole

And he didn't like my cake.

My biscuits were too hard...

Not like his mother used to make.


I didn't perk the coffee right

He didn't like the stew,

I didn't mend his socks

The way his mother used to do.


I pondered for an answer

I was looking for a clue.

Then I turned around and smacked him...


Like his Mother used to do.

[Chez moi]

Ha! That fits perfectly with mine, from just-before-spring:


I called my inner pirate out today
to battle with the roses run amok
in garden beds gone wild since summer's end.

Oh, snickersnee! she cried with glee, Avast!
I'll have your heads, no quarter for this lot!

It did me good to see her thrust and parry,
lunge and chop, until I made her stop
and sent her in at noon to make my lunch.

CM

[d's girl]

Spring is like a perhaps hand by E. E. Cummings
III

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

[d's girl]

Spring brings me back to life!
A bounce in my step
A smile on my face
A light in my eyes
It opens me up
Fills me with joy
Springing forth
A lightness of being
Engaging
from my heart
from my spirit
with everyone I meet!

Thank you, Spring!

Taylor
Spring
2010