Poems to welcome Spring

These are only a few poems that remind us of Spring. Please feel free to add your own. Happy Spring everyone!

Near Spring Equinox by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish –

A ruby crocus near the porch sends up

hope—winter of sorrow is waning

the dire moon of almost-spring rises

full with promise of renewal,

shaming twinkling city lights in its splendor. 

I search for my faith, wonder where

I lost it, find it in deep cinnamon

mud smushing up between my toes.

Across a spent field, a lake in shadow

serenades curvature of earth.

As if on cue, a comet streaks

across somber roiling river of sky.

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Spring by Mary Oliver –

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her -—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

Welcome by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg –

You come through the gate,

and your life on earth begins:

green wavering into the hue

of early spring, the growing

heat pouring leaf into form

just as you did, are doing,

will do with lack, rain, rivers,

kisses, wind, and horizons

that come each turning.

You stand up in your dream,

lean on the fence, look wide

toward the lights spilled

across the black expanse

that carries the world.

The next destination pours

toward you as you walk.

A thunderhead powers upward,

spends itself over the past,

behind you to your left.

You turn and look one direction,

then another until you’re back

where you started: welcome

as rain in the tall reach of the weather

of your body, of this life

that breathes in time, breathes out light.

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Revery by Fenton Johnson –

1. 

I was the starlight 

I was the moonlight 

I was the sunset, 

Before the dawning 

          Of my life; 

I was the river

Forever winding 

To purple dreaming, 

I was the glowing 

Of youthful Springtime, 

I was the singing 

Of golden songbirds,—

        I was love.

            2. 

I was the sunlight,

I was the twilight,  

I was the humming

Of winged creatures

    Ere my birth; 

I was the blushing 

Of lily maiden, 

I was the vision 

Of youthful striving, 

I was the summer, 

I was the autumn, 

I was the All-time—

      I was love