Or else we might think that time itself will,
the blossoms roll back into the buds. 
or hover breathlessly
like a wave refusing to break,
a dawn forever on the horizon
whispering its secrets
 
Whatever does the moon do but change?
Yet we love it
Old men die in places we will never see 
and others are driven into the streets
where their great-grandfathers sold trinkets 
in the dust
We, born to happier estates, 
tiptoe through gardens of remembrances,
stopping at long trains of ancestry
spreading like boxcars on lines of enabling disasters 
that cruise through whistle-stop lives
 
Those whose lives are on the line
beg us to put away the scissors
We limber up, stretch our legs
walk our miles forward into time,
into measureless years without increments of schooling,
feeling ever the pulse of close-of-day motions –
 
April has no need of such reassurances, 
purple spirits cross the edges of social reminders
like money
like dead letters choosing its accidental targets 
in the manner of gods,
dead ends for our feet just ahead, 
but none for the narcissus, the purpling grape 
the color of liquid
 
It is we who are in need of the lamps of evening 
the madness of consumption 
headlines, updates, inanities
 
We have the stars
Stars, we beg,
come down and live among us
                        

When I fumble for the right word,
turning the business into a football of the mind,
pouncing, swatting, slicking the spheroid 
            this way and that
Hoping that Hollenby or Cremblwood will magically 
relieve me of the burden 
and hurry the collective posterior down the field
for the last-minute rhymer,
planting those extra two points
 
Yes, concealment is the virtue of the imagination,
uncomplaining, conceding the odd ache and pain,
to the wages of time
Having had time to sufficiency, seeking only more,
mis-membering of this or that,
making self and other laugh, or smile at least,
with a slanted observation 
designedly off the true 
 
When my eyes see one thing,
and my memory, that trembling catalogue of
ancient associations
produces something other 
a near fit, maybe, but not the thing itself, 
a stumble-nym, a near-sightly miss,
a nibble from the mouse of precognition,
a snapshot of intellection 
intended for some other album
 
The moment passes, fades, the colors run, then drain
The thing in itself becomes some yester-thought
the passing flux remembers itself forward 
as the rabbi (I think it was) said
Not the hare of fashionable attention 
falling like the rain,
moments we will temper and distemper 
in whole health and stutter-dumb
I cleave my weakness to my breast
and hold fast to my word/world 
                        

Let's do something tangible
Let's look at the evidence all around us, 
some of it greening up nicely
Remove the freighted gloves of caution 
and put on the stooping gloves of spring,
the ones with holes in the fingertips 
Covid and April are separate empires of thought, 
incommensurable ideas,
their borders quiet
 
I confess to voting for April, for all its annual disappointments
Poll numbers up and down with the weather 
I vote for yellow and purple, pink and occasional red 
well on their way on the supply train for weeks to come
The fruit trees weep blossoms,
open-faced whites litter sidewalks like discarded gloves,
promising pink buds curl tight as shuttered lips on woodland cherry
 
Earth is pregnant in April
New deliveries arrive each day
Egrets comb the marshes
Brown leaves give way to the green fingers of spring 
Hellebores hide their egg-shaped cells of color under 
veils of wintry remembrance 
 
Look! Earth’s made it through!