Spring

After a week of foggy, rainy wet weather during which nary a ray of sun was to be seen, today the alien fog bank lifted, at least for awhile. . . the gray weather that brought out the rich myriad greens and poignantly muted the colors had been a prelude to the cantata of sunlight that illuminated the flora like miniature cathedrals. . .


s

John Keats Weather

rain globe
long red worms
graze the soil

startling bright green haze
creeps from frozen brown
drought

water sloshes in the lungs
and heart, thermostat plunging
from childish fever to hellish chills

hot sun
beckons through weeks of rain
from hallucinated islands

spores fire
weed and bud
ferment the meridians

of dark brick corners
coal midnights
a ceaseless windy plash

soft unimaginable petals
burgeon
the richest desire

the outset of the walk was
through lush catastrophe and we
slept in a sodden sullen church

hovering in the dense
cheap sick room
the living bacteria flumed

in the quay submerged
rhythms of forest and
maroon

complicate
arpeggios of
rocks in the chest

wheels of geometric
patterns
lush sensual and set

foggy breaths
clink music
a cat licks its lips

hoary poppy
leaves pierce
black loam

two crows toy
and drop
the bone

ribboning cove
bronchial tide
veins of muddy brine

time unfurls
the heat cruelly
explodes the farm

you both
kiss the wall
covering it with whispers

spectral fairies prance
over harsh
oaken moss

red ribbon of flame
haunts the
alabaster neck

a purple dress
sails through
the heath of health

you were correct
to fear the scansions of love
without which

the verse would not
burn
nor the world uncurl

yet still time? to
set things right
put the house in order

sweep out the larks
ashes beetles
mortar

though a moist
chaos infiltrates
the book

________

so one goes on
perhaps even marries
settling into the stitch

it’s nothing like
marrying the sea though
is it?

(May, 2011)