Spring Song

… there was another place—beneath the sky, above the trees, far beyond town, in fields and woods—where springtime had generated a secret life of its own: a life wonderful, rich and hallowed … a life beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man.
      Anton Chekov

Upon the earth are treasures still,
  Don’t forget.
Therefore, no need to hang one self,
  Not yet……
      LC

When the limitless dawn arises
It illumines the woodlands,
And buds are inflamed like one with fever.
Spring beauties nod their heads
Towards the sun with righteous petition,
And Mourning cloaks flitter from clearing to clearing.
Vernal pools fill the undulating hollows
Of the forest floor like dark, inscrutable eyes
That ripple with the urgency
Of an ephemeral season.
Streams that seemed to flow
Like molten lead in the low light
Of winter, shine as brightly
As the finest cut of diamond.
Spice bush charge down the wet valleys,
Their hair in yellow curlers;
Not yet having donned their green blouses,
They yawn at the stubby skunk cabbages
Who had already risen and,
Like punctual craftsmen at their trade,
Were already in temperature
Long before the Solstice.
The sound of a Red-shafted flicker signaling
Echoes dully, its mate tentatively examining
A dark, winking nest cavity nearby.
Low in the forest understory a Phoebe
Flicks its tail like a frenetic orchestra conductor.
Below in the patch of sunlight lies
A black rat snake stirring
From a long nap,
An animated, elongated piece of coal,
Confident and sleek of movement.
A millipede freezes as a carpenter ant
Clambers over its back.
The red ant colony grows
On the chin of the field
Like a straw-coated mole;
of the celestial nocturnale.
It comes to life, workers scattering
Freshly excavated pebbles
From deep within darkened mazes.
The first wild bee appears,
Humming as it hovers
Over newly formed blossoms
It discovers.
This is not a casual affair,
The hastening of Spring.
When the heavens frown,
And clouds roll chaotically
Like ball bearings randomly
Let loose, chased by an unkind wind,
The urgency is stilled but for a moment,
Renewed doubly with the sun’s return.
At dusk silence reigns over the forest floor.
The evening rises black as ink
From the roots of leafless trees and fills
Every branch and twig,
And stark is the contrast
Of those skeletal profferings
With an aquamarine horizon
Layered with orange and grey-blue.
The appearance at last,
Like performers entering stage on cue,
Of the vessels of the night
That, in their stoic, silent way
Seem to say: All is as it should be…
      LC