A QUESTION OF SPRING

My cat is alert

to the coming of spring;

she vibrates to every sight, sound, smell

of life’s return.

I, on the other hand,

am slow to believe.

I linger in the waning light

of  winter camellias.

I bow my head…

subdue my trembling response

to snowdrops rising

from their bed of green.

My doubtful mind produces

shades of gray

yet, thankfully, cannot extinguish

the flowers’ light.

When spring decides itself,

even reluctant eyes

must see eventually

the signs that force the earth to yield.

The beacons – be they small –

are everywhere

appearing on a dreary morning

to amaze the heart.

ENTRANCEMENT

On my cousin’s birthday –

walking the trail of a refuge for Sandhill Cranes  –

I found myself entranced by curly grasses.

My sister called them Toothache Grass.

Yet how could anything so fey and free –

so grace-filled and precocious –

be named Toothache Grass?

I fell behind the jovial women I had come with,

surrendering to the dependable intimacy

of taking photographs.

These curly grasses drew me in

to catch the light…

to sense the wind…

to dance against Palmetto and Pine.

Having found my peers,

how could I leave?