Every April
my rational winter brain,
is sent packing by spring light.
My body seems to wish to sift the world solo.
Skin gathers courage, gut relaxes,
sinews tighten and become hopeful,
lungs let the air caress them,
muscles find their natural rhythms.
Every year this sharply angled light
Re-sculpts details scoured from my synapses
by frigid winter: moss in the riverbed
stands straight up under pounding white water;
wood frogs that swim just under the surface
are translucent amber; the spathe
of the skunk cabbage arches tenderly
over its spadix: mantled Virgin
cradles shining Child.
On tiptoe
on this slab of slick granite that still leaks winter,
holding onto a young alder, I can just glimpse
a slice of distant river where
spring light scatters.
