Pastorale

The pasture is messy. Clods of overturned earth flounder in afternoon heat. Intransigent field weeds fountain between the plots and rows. Mud puddles in the tractor path wallow in their own mire. In the field's anteroom, two giant damp barns shelter rusty machines, every curve of pitted metal, every peeling board weighty with time's passing. So much work to do, my back crumples in the face of it—and it isn't even my work. I walk way out in the fields and face the mountains that do no work. A breeze comes up. I can see it in the distant trees and feel it on my shoulders.

May in the Mountains

Cold rain continues. Adamant windows let the wet air penetrate the house and bones. Why doesn't the person close them? The windows insist on remaining open to the possibility of Spring.

Week of Rains

The Norway maple rains spring-green flowers all over the yard. The rosemary bush takes them on like its own blue flowers, which have just started to open. The beech tree showers brownish cat-claw husks, bracts I guess. They are harder than the maple pods and make a tiny sound when they hit ground. The apple pours off its shocking petals and makes a bridal path of the sidewalk. The poplars start their cotton storm. Pollens trickle down incessantly, becoming visible on the surfaces of cars and lakes. And the sky, taken over by clouds, rains and rains rain.

Too Fast

The infant leaves of the red beech—

one evening in the gold light—

I was on my way—

I would have come back—

Foolish woman—

made of birdsong—

Charms

The copper beech in leaf and flower.

High Spring

Green smoke rises up the mountainsides.

Without Pause

The maples opened on April 26. They still carry pale spring-greenness, but are already dropping their tiny flowers as batwing leaves droop forth.