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The
Late Wisconsin Spring
Spring
here is at first so wary,
And then so spare that even the birds act like strangers,
Trying out the the strange air with a hesitant chirp
or two,
And then subsiding.
Spring
here is too subdued; the air is clear with anticipation,
But its real strength lies in the quiet tension of isolation
And living patiently, without atonement or regret,
In the eternity of the plain moments, the next of care
--Until suddenly, all alone, the mind is lifted upward
into
Light and air and the nothingness of the sky,
Held there in that vacant, circumstantial blue until,
In the vehemence of a landscape where the colors all
disappear,
The quiet absolution of the spirit quickens into fact,
And then, into death. But the wind is cool.
The buds are starting to open on the trees.
Somewhere up in the sky an airplane drones.
from
"The Late Wisconsin Spring"
by John Koethe
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