Spring

The Positive Way

Fingers of mother earth scrabble upwards

out of the frost-free and unrelenting soil

scattering away the remains of winter’s waste

and the noisome debris of autumn’s revels.  

She resurrects the limbs of dormant trees

and awakens the sleepy-head flowers, coaxing

them to come forth with their girlish giggles

and play hopscotch once more with the sun.  

In endless dynasties of green skirts, knee-high

sox, and shoes of gold-colored dandelions 

she skips the ropes of the equinox in jubilant

abandon and rouses the sleeping fields of grain. 

But even spring can be betrayed by vagrant frosts

and freezing rains that conspire with wind to 

devastate the plains and rip apart the sheltering 

thatch where the nighthawk’s eggs wait to hatch.  

It’s through these variable cracks that spring 

conspires with sun to outwit the frost and wind

and prepare the soil for the warm, beneficial rain

that will again refresh the world with splendor.