The bulbs push shoots up, invisible until they blow apart.
The lichen population is not impressed by spring stirrings.
Boiling, freezing, drought or flood, they’re good, they’re perpetual.
On the shadow side, north facing, the last snow patch lingers.
The branch roars, swollen from the recent rain and the recent snow.
Passing cataracts and icicles,
from the twin springs just below the ridge, down this far,
down to the branch, on to the Mississippi, to the Gulf.
The crocus bulbs have called spring!
The light stripey ones,
delicate and bright,
already sticking to the bee’s knees as she crawls inside
to work, drunk on the golden pollen.
The deep purple clump
And the grandest bloom of all,
serene, imperial,
except for the pollen knocked around her ankles.
Rapture and ravishing.