Spring is March wind – mad, rollicking,
unsettling trees and men;
is confident bright air, hallowing
office blocks even,
is the cracked earth’s inability to hold
longer from smiling;
is tiny crocus flags unfurled
behind the damp paling;
is what blows all poems out the window,
saying, start afresh; is when
I wake from a dream, knowing
I shall sleep again.
Spring is an influx of birth
making death easy.
And I sing the Spring as others shall
when I no longer assay,
being bone without shadow
in the brown earth.
Philip Cook
8th March 1920 – 28th March 2008
