Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Primal - Jan 24 2024

 

Primal

Jan 24 2024




 A false spring.


The midwinter thaw

that happens every season

went on and on,

until the snow softened

subsided

retreated,

the ground thawed,

and even the first green shoots

of flowers appeared;

hardy trilliums,

early crocuses,

unlikely looking snowdrops

bowing their delicate heads.


They poked up like soldiers

peeking over the parapets

to see if the siege-machines had left.


Who knew

nature could so easily be fooled?

That the life force

was so powerful,

the drive to grow

so primal?

That a killer frost

was worth the risk?


We were out as well,

wearing T-shirts and gumboots

and blinking in the sun.

In the fever of spring

feeling our own life force swell.


The earthy scent

of freshly thawed soil.

Our colour high

blood warm.

And as happens every spring

the primal drive

that can't be helped;

turning our minds turning to love

and bodies to lust,

judgment gone to hell.


As I've said many times, I have no idea where a poem go. I feel like a stenographer, simply taking dictation.

An image appears, a sentence or word catches my fancy, or some vague concept demands to be explored, and then it's all just riffing: forming my stream of consciousness into something reasonably coherent.

Although the sound often precedes the thought. It comes to me in sound. Like a singer songwriter who composes the music before the lyrics.

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