after Lucie Brock-Broido

winter crossing

bleak annulled

dulcimer damaged

choir miraculous

air &

monstrous ravishing

animal fallen

calls nightsky

ghost spectacle

again lynch

light loved

flint bliss

starfish tissue

shrouds lukewarm

sheathes everything

fanatic vanishing

Welcome, all hail to thee!
     Welcome, young Spring!
Thy sun-ray is bright
     On the butterfly’s wing.
Beauty shines forth
     In the blossom-robed trees;
Perfume floats by
     On the soft southern breeze.

Music, sweet music,
     Sounds over the earth;
One glad choral song
     Greets the primrose’s birth;
The lark soars above,
     With its shrill matin strain;
The shepherd boy tunes
     His reed pipe on the plain.

Music, sweet music,
     Cheers meadow and lea;—
In the song of the blackbird,
     The hum of the bee;
The loud happy laughter
     Of children at play
Proclaim how they worship
     Spring’s beautiful day.

The eye of the hale one,
     With joy in its gleam,
Looks up in the noontide,
     And steals from the beam;
But the cheek of the pale one
     Is mark’d with despair,
To feel itself fading,
     When all is so fair.

The hedges, luxuriant
     With flowers and balm,
Are purple with violets,
     And shaded with palm;
The zephyr-kiss’d grass
     Is beginning to wave;
Fresh verdure is decking
     The garden and grave.

Welcome! all hail to thee,
     Heart-stirring May!
Thou hast won from my wild harp
     A rapturous lay.
And the last dying murmur
     That sleeps on the string
Is welcome! All hail to thee,
     Welcome, young Spring!

Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin on my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being post-modern now, I pretended as if I did not see them, nor understand what I knew to be circling inside me.  Instead, every hour I told my son to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled a banana.  And cursed God—His arrogance, His gall—to still expect our devotion after creating love.  And mosquitoes.  I showed my son the papery dead skins so he could know, too, what it feels like when something shows up at your door—twice—telling you what you already know.

Both lying on our sides, making love in
spoon position when she’s startled, What’s that?
She means the enormous ship passing before you—
maybe not that large, is it a freighter

or a passenger ship?  But it seems huge in the dark
and it’s so close.  That’s a poem you say, D. H.
Lawrence—Have you built your ship of death,
have you? O build your ship of death,

For you will need it.  Right here it would be good 
if there were a small orchestra on board, you’d hear
them and say to her, That piece is called Autumn

that’s what the brave musicians played as the Titanic
went under—and then you could name this poem "Autumn."
But no, the ship is silent, its white lights glow in the darkness.