So Much of Spring
I never saw so much of Spring
as I see now. The tender willow
turning amber. The nightengale,
the sparrow in the heavens
raving.
The moon behind the spider
making web, now blotted out by
geese in trumpet, home again,
home again, home to spring.The toad has found his roadside.
Butterflies are jumping
from cocoons, ants and crickets
share the bush and every truth of
this sweet season.
The moon is now a pearl, a cloud
its shell, as in the tall bamboo and
reed cicadas sing
in four party harmony.
I think the older seasons envy
spring and well they should. The
roses are not blood-red or purple
in extreme. A subtle pink, a lazy
lavender, no single petal scorched
by sun. All things al dente,
underdone.
How is it that in all my years I never
saw this much of Spring? To think
I once believed that tenderness
lay underfoot of Autumn.
I am the aging sparrow’s twin
suffering from ill attention, as all
souls concentrate on April things.
–Rod McKuen
NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 