April is Cruelest? How
About May?
Red and yellow tulips
school children planted in the fall
now flourish under the
schoolhouse windows this spring,
with a flood of new
buds in the gardens of homes beyond,
delicate petals of
lilies, daffodils, and blue delphinium, and
the sweet scents of
lilacs, pink roses, blue hydrangea.
In the field, wild
forsythia and the fuzzy tufts of pussy willows,
and along the creek
that winds gently through, cattails with their
russet tufts sway in
the softer May breezes. A red-winged
blackbird sends a
high-pitched melody rising and falling,
sweet song that lifts
the hearts of the young.
The old, as well, revel
in rituals of reawakening—but beg to be
spared from dyspeptic
poets! Old or young, they think too much.
Of fleet-footed time,
of the withering rose, or
torrential rain,
the swollen rivers
ripping at shores, sending muddy banks sliding,
boulders crashing, to
bury homes and kill and kill!
Or without drama or
tragedy, they warn of the relentless
turn of calendar days,
Elliot’s Prufrock measuring out
his life in
coffee spoons. Auden’s Time lurking to cough
when you would kiss, and, meanest
of all, Dylan Thomas!
Telling me Time held me
green and dying even as
I planted that tulip bulb
in the second grade, with that
little popsicle stick!
And my name on it no less! There for all to see!
No, let us resist these
sour, dour realists. Instead, let’s grab a bunch
of rosebuds, just
gather and gather while we—cough! cough!—May!
Stephen Granzyk
Tags:
Poetry