Poems

Spring Awakening

Spring pokes and tugs at the covers.

We snuggle under moss and last year’s leaves

Warm in our winter fug.

 

She has been hinting for weeks now,

Peeping green fingertips from under earth

Tickling our fancy with snowdrops.

 

But today she is loud and insistent,

Shrill with her cacophony of busy birds

urgent

to pair and breed in the lengthening light.

 

Spring shows up the spots and splashes on my walls,

smears on my naked windows.

She bursts through my lawn in vital spikes

demanding lawnmower, rake and attention.

 

For a while ice encased us.

Long petrified fingers held the world

Motionless in white magic,

Every twig and berry embalmed in its frozen coat.

We walked on water like saints

Safe in our wool and boots.

 

But now there is no escaping

Spring’s bright, exacting clamour.

I cannot walk in the woods without

Treading on bluebell shoots.

 

‘Now’, shouts the sunlight, ‘Now!’

It is time to face the future.

Time to embrace your life, with all its

Uncomfortable exigencies.

 

So I stretch

and I yawn

And, with a long sigh,

Open my eyes to daylight’s dazzle.