the spring mantra arrives with distinctive citified sparkles

a family of ducklings splash, mimicking young children,
shaking, spraying, squeaking, babies bath bathing,
jumping in and out of a fountain pool
of a tall-storied Manhattan apartment building,
the mother-leader attends them well for she recalls
the untimely end of the babies of last year,
lost to wanderlust on York Avenue,
cars and taxis as instruments of mass murdering,
but new spring is the season of new birth

the Cercis Siliquastrum tree trunk (!) oddly sprouts
unusual pink flowers
well before it’s branches grow up into a fully blossoming tree,
a signed spring time ritual, but since it is a/k/a, the Judas Tree,
we wonder if spring hints of Cerci Lannister’s fate betrayed,
in this, her final May dance, oh, which Judas brother/lover
will bring us a winter fin finale

the temperature control dial busted, the variability too wide,
the youngers are skipping the interregnum season,
going direct to elect shorts and T-shirt, while those who no longer bloom in the semi-warm, recall the wet chill of past evenings,
voting to dress defensively, wearing their aging skepticism
aware that all changes are exact crossing line-defined, wrapped in
medium weight coats, concealing embarrassing gloves in pocket,
decorative silk scarfs for non-decorative purposed,
all betting the under/over the spring is here all-in not yet sighted

the streets are busy, the momentary pleasantries
of warm sky and sun push the apartment dwellers out,
a magnetic force pulls us to the outside to exhale, in order to inhale,
guises manufactured excuses appear, a loaf of bread, a latte necessity,
the children desert happily their wintery confinement,
by pushing their own carriages, containing in their stead,
their lilting accented nannies, excited by their version of spring break

Me? toy shopping for this month brings rashers of birthdays,
more May galorey, singing come Dancer and Prancer, Ian and Isabel, Alex and not-a-baby anymore Wendy, and because the weather so pleasant, cautions ignored, the credit card swiped repeatedly, frequently and joyously, xmas reimagined, another May time ritual, rooted in the September month of *******, of staying warm, staving off winter *******, and winter planting for spring harvesting

children score grand-multiplicities for god made in his place
grand parental substitutes, each with two hands each equal,
so both must be filled with maypole ribbon, brightly colored
toy bags, presents wrapped in paper unicorns and all manner of
sporting *****, as we turn 2 and 6, 7 and who ate 8?

all that my eyes did see when we surfed strolled the streets,
vignettes fell like the spring rains, they, now, from daytime banished,
to after-midnight to do their breast feeding of tulips and weeds,
letting little children grow up snuggling in still over-heated rooms,
naked legs kicking off winter blankety snow remnants while dreaming of springing onwards and forward
into the party of life by inhaling nature’s

nature.

-for Zukiswa Mvunguse~
and for
~ Jul,
who once again,
loved each line best~


having already deduced that:

“the unplanned is his plan,
it’s his faceted flaws
that refract his coloratura”^

the titled alliteration teases him into thinking
there, is more to be said,
more to be prayed,
the unplanned lesser lesson is as-of-the-yet unlearned,
and the sunburst of a full fledged
lying-in-bed born from a static spark of kinetic energy,
awaking in an unfamiliar bed
or a too familiar state of mind,
begs for birth and vainglorious death-by-anon/amity
of another poem  

I have written poems commissioned,
“write about suicide,” asked a friend,
“take this word and artfully knead it,” once, was once an oft request,
twisty manipulate your scheming resources into
finely assaying a field rock raw,
laboratory mind-mine it into an essay that delve dives
where you fear to treacherous tread,
resultant, an awkward prayer, now, a valued mineral

no poem is truly planned and no prayer ever truly answered,
but as you compose, pushing the last, next word
ever farther to the right,
you self-confess, expecting no absolution, that the poem,
this one as well,
and the next, and the next, and the next

has always been planned since your inception,
always a prayer asked, and in creation conception,
answered even if not directly answered,
for
in the bare minimum asking,
is the answering,
is the planning,
is the poem and the prayer,
is his owned
alliteration

~explaining light to the blind~


~for Suzy~

the insanity of even attempting

who among us, the sighted,
has the capability to clarify
an animate inanimate,
an untouchable invisible,
that can be folded, bent,
travel universes unseen
at its own chosen speed,
even to another sighted

and to the blind...

imagine then light
as something that
be recognized from the inside only with
in- sight

~think of the continuum from
warmth to steel furnaced heat,
that is an element of what is light,
the sun cheek kissing, the furnace of chests
when you grasp another’s body first time

think of light as water,
the faucet spigot a measured pouring,
that can overshoot, the stream behind the house,
a toe tickling masseuse caress,
a dam’s waterfall endless crashing,
a sea, wave licking sudden raging dangerous

blend these sensations that belong to all,
and you’ll know light better than most,
indeed, light is for those who cannot vision
except from the inside with a sight that can be
touched, felt, imagined, and which the sightless
command better than us ordinary thoughtless

indeed light is as simple to understand as
  abc,
which you have never seen, but creates the words
that we all
use
even share~