Purple crocus smiles
Its greeting gives me hope
Spring will soon be here

White-furred hill flowers bow
Gust-bent,
Wet in April snow,
Lavender beneath their
Downy coats.

Tender soldiers of spring
Grasp wind-blown gravel steeps,
Stand to beckon brown grass,
Soft-call the life in sapless trees
To ring with green again
Against Old Bully Winter’s
Blustering.

Quaking aspens,
Earliest to leaf in yellow-green,
Curling grama grasses,
Tough food for buffalo,
Cannot boast first life each Montana spring;
Only zombie-lichens,
Rock-fast mosses
Throw off winter’s death
Before the crocus' rise.

On eastern Montana hills
No street-hemmed dandelions
Colonize in chute-dropped ranks;
No time-tamed tulips
Live on wind-round knolls.

Here, the yucca’s bayonet-sharp ******;
Here, the wild onions’ scent-strong hold;
But these arrive after early chill,
Following the purple crocus on the hill.