Setting Spring Alight**

Dog and man, leashed by habit,
retrace all the old routes against
a backdrop of calendar pages
ripped clean, carried off by thieving
wind graduated from soft breezes  
once played across fresh baked faces,
recalled when thoughts wander off lead.  
They pause here and there to rub
trace memory from galley proofs of grass,
take in sooty crews of robins, incendiaries
touching down, setting town alight.
One warms to waning desire
to give chase, the other burns
through days as if spring still hung
lightly on his shoulders.