The Early Days Before Spring

At this dark, effervescent time of the year

when the greening has begun but no spring song is evident

after the late rain in the early afternoon

I want to hold you,

firmly, like the promise

of the summer that never arrives in this life.

It is joy and a longing for joy, twin chords

of the thrush's throat. I feel

in this season a joy not mine to hold

or change in any way,

like patterns of flight

new birds rehearsing the first song make

which even the sky forgets.

We forget, too, and I want to hold you

now, before the pattern is made

and we follow the father and mother

who happened to call us by name in the early days, forever determining

where we shall want to return when older,

when gray like the sky before day disappears.

It seems that if I could touch that voice

that sighs so easily here in my arms

I could call it my own, and possessing a song

might even be able to sing your name,

marking the sky with this music, with my

small heart that wants to explode into your

blue world, like one of the stars.