I don't blame you. I have a comfortable rut when it comes to garden writing.

high spring today
the cold all gone
as in an oven
newly lit

the garden plants
really notice it
and shoot up
almost visibly

in a sudden rush
for airspace
and rootspace
and to embrace

the possibilities
that this might be
the year they throw
their chains off

You see me with the chain-saw
and burst out in snowy flowers,
trying to invoke the old taboos
against beheading limbs in bloom,
the throttling of pregnant women
or simmering lambs in ewe's milk.

It's very nearly good enough.
To go ahead and cut is going to hurt,
and then to toss your fragrant sprays
onto the stinking compost heap
and bring just one of them inside
to prop up like a goddess in a vase.

But we both know that blossoming is
just a front for breaching sewer lines.

How about:

the year they off
their chains

It's a nice piece, Tom.

Am totally in love with the next one!


It almost gets away from you in the 2s but you pull it back beautifully.

The rhyme in the couplet is fantastic!!

Nice Nice Nice.

Give this a name and put it out there!!!

Glad you enjoyed, spring-poem lover! I'll come back and finish these soon. Tom

The last two lines of this piece are terrific.

Lament of the Middle Man
by Jay Parini

In late October in the park
the autumn's faults begin to show:
the houses suddenly go stark
beyond a thinning poplar row;
the edges of the leaves go brown
on every chestnut tree in town.

The honking birds go south again
where I have gone in better times;
the hardy ones, perhaps, remain
to nestle in the snowy pines.
I think of one bold, raucaus bird
whose wintry song I've often heard.

I live among so many things
that flash and fade, that come and go.
One never knows what season brings
relief and which will merely show
how difficult it is to span
a life, given the Fall of Man.

The old ones dawdle on a bench,
and young ones drool into their bibs;
an idle boffer, quite a mensch,
moves fast among the crowd with fibs.
A painted lady hangs upon
his word as if his sword was drawn.

Among so many falling fast
I sometimes wonder why I care;
the first, as ever, shall be last;
the last are always hard to bear.
I never know if I should stay
to see what ails the livelong day.

I never quite know how to ask
why some men wear bright, silver wings
while others, equal to the task,
must play the role of underlings.
"It's what you know, not who," they swore.
I should have known what to ignore.

I started early, did my bit
for freedom and the right to pray.
I leaned a little on my wit,
and learned the sort of thing to say,
yet here I am, unsatisfied
and certain all my elders lied.

A middle man in middle way
between the darkness and the dark,
the seasons have tremendous sway:
I change like chestnuts in the park.
Come winter, I'll be branches, bones;
come spring, a wetness over stones.

agreed, thanks Maggie, Tom