New Song

As sweetness flows through these new days,

the woods leaf out, and songbirds phrase

in neumes of roosted melody

incipits to a new song.

Then love should find lubricity

and quicken, having slept so long.

The bloodroot blossoms, well and good,

but I receive no word that would

set my troubled heart at ease,

nor could we turn our faces toward

the sun, and open by degrees,

unless we reach a clear accord.

And so our love goes, night and day:

it’s like the thorny hawthorn spray

that whips about in a bitter wind

from dusk to dawn, shellacked with sleet,

until the sun’s first rays ascend

through leaves and branches, spreading heat.

I have in mind one April morning

when she relented without warning,

relenting from her cold rebuff

in laughter, peals of happiness.

Sweet Christ, let me live long enough

to get my hands beneath her dress!

I hate the elevated talk

that disregards both root and stalk

and sets insipid pride above

vicissitudes of lust and strife.

Let others claim a higher love:

we’ve got the bread, we’ve got the knife.