April Again


Excessive green
and all those silly daffodils
splashing across the landscape.
The sunlight's too bright,
too insistent for my winter eyes.
Even the dumb brown earth
wants to fool me,
sending up the daylillies
around my mailbox posts.

Lungs full of spring giddiness.
Rampant motion inside,
outside my thin winter skin
and everywhere I sense
sap running, blood thinning,
grass greening, buds unwinding.

My heart forgot to hunker down
for the annual
winter-to-spring upheaval.
Forgot to remind myself
that spring's only temporary.
Your letters are suddenly
not enough of you; your calls
are salt on my longing.
I decide, six states distant,
you cannot be my lover,
you can only be my friend,

a decision as silly
as those daffodils,
as temporary as spring.

April 2000
Portsmouth

 

~Return To "Being in the World"