Trees, drunk with snow melt,
push buds through winter skins,
impatient crocuses bustle from the soil.
Everywhere something stirs,
its long sleep nearly done.
The wind blows without a bite,
birds are on the wing.
Long ago, it was gulls that called.
Now it’s wild geese.
Suddenly, I’m old,
every day a gift;
it was always so
had I but known it.
Ah, we say, what a life!
and yet …
We are the heirs of discontent
we carry all colors among us
to their inevitable conclusion
Our eyes are rising swiftly
under an aging sun
What nourished our forebears
we find merely annoying
All those Bible Prophets mute
as sacks of sand
To build dikes against
a flood which never comes
and yet …
here we stand
precisely in their footpads
exiles child 