as the first warm day after winter
you would not believe that i love, but i do
i love the purple-lined clovers and crushed acorn shells
the cracked mud of the dry lakebed, leaves once frozen now translucent as cobwebs
the wrinkled grass a bed for bugs and squirrels and geese
the sun, how she dips like a lover who does not wish to leave yet, how her pining paints the tree trunks ochre
and i love the people
the children who scheme, practice mimicry waddle and honk and imagine flight
the boy who lets himself have the simple pleasure of my sunshine, peach at the high points of his cheeks
the old man who strums tender notes, quarters dropped as wishes in his guitar case
the young woman who dips her toes into the stones and twigs, makes sanctity of the willow’s shade, studies the shifting curtain of pale green, a dance
listen to me as i metamorphose, my amber wings now saturated in misty blue
listen to me
there is so much good around
love as i do with your heart pumping wind and your head big and bright and your kind words sprawling as flowers in a field















