Metamorphosis
Always it happens when we are not there--
The tree leaps up alive into the air,
Small open parasols of Chinese green
Wave on each twig. But who has ever seen
The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
Spring always manages to get there first.
Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
Of a faint stirring in the empty air,
Look up one day through a dissolving screen
To find no star, but this multiplied green,
Shadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
Listen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!
-- by May Sarton, from Collected Poems 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton and Co.It's true -- finally in Glasgow, we have leafage! If you look carefully in the picture you'll notice a branch across the buttercups, and indeed it has the tiniest little leaf buds on it. Flowers -- carelessly showy and quick blooming like the buttercups pictured -- have across the city burst into brightness and just as quickly had their petals brushed into the streets by hard rain and gales, but the leaves -- more cautious by half -- are taking their time and doing their yearly sneak attack. When we least expect it, there will be wind soughing through the leaves again.
Those of you who enjoy writing process "porn" as Gwenda calls it, will enjoy Jules' post at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, where she interviews the poets of Cutting A Swath and explores how the six month poetry project process began.
Poetry Friday is hosted today at The Well-Read Child.
9 comments:
That's a good one, TadMack. Here in Connecticut the forsythia and the Japanese magnolias are blooming. Spring! Yay.
Tadmack,
I love your poem selection for today. I haven't seen much green where I live in Massachusetts. The trees are still bare of leaves--but the sun is shining and it's been warm for more than a day.
Wonderful poem. It's SO true. We've got little green buds on the trees -- and before we can blink, all the leaves will be back.
Lovely poem and photo Tadmack. My favorite line: "The tree leaps up alive into the air," Ah!
I'm having a hard time staying inside today as we finally have a stunningly springy day. What's with these kids wanting to sit at computers?
"But who has ever seen/The latch sprung, the bud as it burst?" Ah, loveliness. Here, and outside.
The poem reminds me of those little seedpods that come spiraling down from certain trees like little helicopters, and the almost unreal green of the new leaves on our Japanese maple--did I tell you we planted a 10-foot Japanese maple? (We got it for free from a friend who has a ranchette!) The buds are RED, but the leaves are green. It is so happy about springtime.
This is soooo lovely. That latch springing. Man, that does me in. This one deserves a read aloud, to be sure...
Here, too, the latch has finally sprung. The haze of new leaves in trees and shrubs, the sweet blown flowers, the tulips...I just can't soak it all up enough to last another year! But I'll try!
Oh, Mary Lee, I'm *so glad*!!! You and I were the last holdouts, I thought, in Witch Witch World, and I was worried for us.
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