Like sunshine stealing into a foreign room, few bruised mums, in white and gold

Embroider the threshold over Which a reluctant and shy April enters with a promise

Of earth opening once again, After the long winter’s incubus Of sleep and forgetting.

The absence of hunger is Another hunger itself. This the mums know

As they unravel, petal By petal, on the cool wooden Floor, on which he paces

Expectant, waiting.

Sliding imperceptibly into a new decade At the tail-end of a long winter, he watches Dappled water - its waist embroidered Now by the first sprigs of forsythia yellow - Polish the untoothed mica of stones, and Unwind its pale ribbon to the farthest coast, Only to turn into monsoon rain on the horizon.

That is where all the loved voices reside - Those of lost companions, unheard in years, With all the rest - some of infants' who keep Arriving every year like the trusting goldfinches, And some of old friends' that keep vanishing Like the last of geese honks rippling north.

March 7, 2009 Atlanta