Spring Rain: a toast

Here's to road washouts growling with glacial melt,
groundwater replenished. Old fur combed from pelts

by burly brown figures digging out of dens
where ferns unfurl fiddleheads over greening fens.

Here's to buds bursting with emerald emergent,
news of the new season not yet read and urgent.

Here's to the motionless wings inside cocoons
waiting for warmth and for a waxing moon.

Here's to trillium tricking out timber stands,
rhododendron rhapsody played by a marching band.

Here's to each heart hearing a wild goose calling
on the south wind at night while the clock keeps crawling

toward a dawn that will bring in a grey-washed sky.
Here's to every heart that knows how to cry.

Here's to ancient willows that sway like old drunks.
Here's to young saplings nursed on fallen trunks,

deadfalls half-buried in moss tender as sleep,
moss greener than ocean and almost as deep.

Here's to the wanderers, pilgrims and saints,
the lovers, the loners, the ones who won't wait,

the losers, the lost, the sinners repentant,
every knight who rode under his lady's pennant,

everyone who watched a soldier home from war.
Here's to the ones who will watch no more.

Here's to every cobweb and its dewdrop jewel.
Here's to spring rain and sweet renewal.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside