Thursday, March 22, 2012

For Spring, 2012

1st day of Spring, 2012...view of the Susquehanna from Dragonfly Cottage

{A poem written inspired by another Spring, once upon a time...}
-->
 Trees rise…

Stars tangle in the night-black branches of the soft maple 
rising impossibly high against the mellow night’s 
light-pricked ebony velvet—
Orion, leaping ahead of the winter-born Saggittarius, 
is now caught by early dark. 
In January’s bejeweled & frozen skies, 
the chase lasted until mid-night. 

I sail off upon this star-current, trusting its familiar passage, 
following night-flighted birds heading homeward…
the Wheel lumbering us all along
with its gentle rounding-rhythm.

So we see the night through…
Birds alight to sleep…
I arise, summoned by quiet yet such insistent urgings…

Trees rise from mist-riddled bottom lands 
which resound and echo with the calls of birds 
exulting in the growing light & warmth of the year,
the Earth slowly spinning Her way into Spring.

We trust to growth, to life re-inventing itself…
to the oozing, leaf-mold muck yielding its verdant promises
….sap-Rising.....

I gather hands-full of dawnlight 
spilling through the livingroom windows, 
stirring and drawing up these hidden energy-currents, hooking into
this shifting, vital force – tidal vibrance, 
as subtle, as constant as the waxing & waning of the Moon 
– and as reliable, 
despite the illusion of its silver crescent 
to make us think the whole of its celestial body 
has been consumed by a nameless darkness.

March journal, 1998, the 28th
Morningside