Two poems

Spring Declaration
They line the road, stark and graceful,
Black or silver against a hazy blue sky.
Outlined in green, their shadows curve along the adobe.
I did not see this yesterday.

When did this happen?

It seems this is the day the tree sap rose up, saying,
"Let the leaves burst open their tight buds and rejoice in the sun.
I will course through their veins, the heart of spring will beat
As I slowly climb the trunk."

Or perhaps this is the day I finally opened my eyes.

The change is swift:  one must be vigilant to catch
That soft subtle moment between winter and spring.

If I listen carefully, I too can hear the sap.


A Farewell
On Easter morning, I write to my friends:
"Meet me at the Kosmos, we'll listen to Pergolesi and rejoice."

Silence, both expected and deserved.  It is a last-minute thought,
Born of a conjunction of time and space.  Here am I, there is the music.
I write out of my lethargy: if they say "yes," I'll have to go.

They do not say yes, and I find my concert in the Bosque,
In the call and response of the birds' sweet and  liquid warbles.

But then I come home to the message, heart-stopping, unexpected, and undeserved.
She had died four days before, on April 1st.

Cruel fool, senseless prankster:  why did you come?

I am not angry, I cannot rail against the unfairness, the wrongness.
All I can see is those deep-set bright eagle's eyes, the hawk nose, the salt-and pepper crest.
Is this what the ravens have been telling me?

I have been too complacent. 
I thought I had all the time in the world
To grow a nascent friendship. 
I forgot that every moment is precious, never to be retrieved.

As I drive home, I see the electronic road signs:
"Watch for pedestrians...Pilgrims on the road,"
And again, "Watch for Walkers."

Shall I park my car, walk down that ramp, make my pilgrimage to the Sanctuario?
Whom would I petition, and how?

The sandstone cliffs gleam ochre and red in the late afternoon light.
I watch the raven soar,
And I can't help myself. I smile.

In Just Spring

I was driving to work last week and suddenly realized that the trees lining the road were covered in a green haze of new buds.  The leaves had not yet opened, of course, so one could still see the outlines of trunks and branches, some graceful, some spiky and knobbly from relentless prunings or parasites.  Their graceful shadows striped the road and snaked up the adobe walls, curving with them. The fields and ditches and arroyos and fields were a blend of golden willow, beige stubble, silver-grey trunks and dark tangles of bushes, plus that bright new green.  It seemed to have happened overnight, and I cought my breath in sudden recogniztion:  it's spring!

I thought of the ee cummings poem, "in just spring, when all the world is puddle-wonderful..."  No, this is not the wet East, this is high desert:  there are no wonderful puddles.  There is some mud-lusciousness near the river, and, as I caught a glimpse of the lamb suckling its mother, I could almost hear that little lame balloon man's whistle.  But not quite.  I can delight in the sudden signs of spring, the yellow dandelions and daffodils, the tender newness of everything; but I'm driving to work, exhausted from my three-weeks-and-counting bout of respiratory virus.  The roads are dusty, and the gale-force winds stir up the dust and juniper pollen, covering my car in a thin layer of brown and making me sneeze.

I think back to my old spring rituals:  walking to the pioneer cemetary in Monmouth, looking for the hillside of violets; driving to Tryon Creek State Park in Portland to see the trillium; trimming the pussy willows in my yard and arranging the shoots in large ceramic vases.  Now the ritual is going to the Botannic Gardens in Albuquerque, or visiting the bosque and watching the cottonwoods burst into green, almost as I watch. I still color the Easter eggs, last year with G, this year with V.  And I sing the hymns as I drive "Praise to the Lord, the almighty the king of creation."  I may not believe in the deity (the jury's still out on that), but I believe in the joy, and am grateful for the ever-new, ever-timeless growth and change.

I think I hear that goatfooted balloon man.