The first day of Spring…

Today is the first day of spring. A day of rebirth for many and for much around us. The images can seems very standard: dripping snow banks, uncovering, releasing patches of grass straining to catch the sun. Blossoms blooming: ready or beginning to burst. Birds pairing to grow their families. Clouds parting, allowing the light to cascade to earth. People escaping from the cocoons of their coats or the homes…one’s dreams become vibrant again as the coming days and months fill with hope: spring. All gifted with the promise of new days ahead…

Spring – by Mary Oliver

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.