Tuesday, May 31, 2005

A Late Spring Poem

It is late springish, although you'd never know it in Boston. And here is a spring poem, although a little late to post it since it is called "Eastering."
thus, a doubly late spring poem. I think this one captures that weird feeling of spring thaw.

From a lovely little book of poems called Morning Watch by Barbara Pescan.

Eastering

Why this sadness toward spring?
Half smiles at the first yellow flowers,
Tears pooling for no reason with each rain and sunset?

Each year this green show
blows wide winter's coverings and lets us see
the swell and push of beginning again.

Am I meant to rise too?
To push away what leans against the door of my
pinched heart?
I cannot.
Compassion for myself
is a slow growing crop,
however carefully tended
it yields an unreliable harvest.

These resurrections
ask more than I can give
every time
this hurts more
than the pains of my body
than the old world of sorrows
this offering of love
this unbearable gift of another chance.

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