Spring 2004
My feet dance independent of me
and words rush out my mouth
in crowds that jostle the day.
My eyes squint in the new light
that paints everything green
while my ears glisten with
the sounds of mockingbirds,
those trumpeters of joy
who sing their life lust from
the highest branches.
The earth’s rolled over in bed,
tossed us out the side,
thrown off the blankets,
hijacked the sun and
stirred up our brains.
We’re drunk, you and I, on whiffs
of orange blossoms in moist air
and the curl of fiddlehead ferns,
on robins’ eggs the color of the sky
and orange lilies at the water’s edge.
We’re drunk on joy and this
energy that runs like electricity,
that jolts us awake laughing
to the day, that denies sleep,
that buzzes the blood, that catapults
us out of our chairs to run down
streets or roll in grass or drink
the dew from leaves at first light.
It’s official, as if we needed
the confirmation, it’s spring.
© Zen Oleary
March 22, 2004
