The Larks

We'll wake under the arbors
of weeping trees, vernal bright
in the new May sun,
new warmth in the earth
as it flows through us,
around us
in such zephyr-pure air.


In this nesting of moss
neath the netting
of leaves, making
stained-glass patterns
on our hands and faces,
we lie in vast repose
across the college lawns,
the gardens, the quiet
city square of grass, green
and pleasing,
new growth.


Larks to sing 
bright new songs
across the airwaves,
dripping sweet,
the golden sun's shine
across our faces
moving us with the 
boughs of these willows,
so old, in perpetuum
as it were,
the cyclical spinning of seasons.


But this is new,
somehow always new,
catching us in the doldrums,
exalting the simplicity
found reflecting us in nature,
some faint beauty, overpowering
in our bones, which draws us out
and lies us out to 
dream, lofty, by the duck ponds
of what now thaws and grows
and sparks.


It sings clear and high,
this soprano ringing 
out from winter's lows,
across the snow embankments.
Flying, flying
we forever are, coming
to this newness,


this growth we crave,
it is within us, internalized
as part our beings, just as
the flowers do bloom,
and as the rains come in April
to birth such verdant tranquil
in May as we 
lie, 
eyes closed,
faces skyward in the eternal unity
of blooming things.


This so-human dalliance 
with the natural world,
the gnarled bark which 
swishes whispers of 
ancient love,
forever the larks sing 
as the light plays green 
on their wings.