Spring, again

The last of the meyer lemons ripen on the bush

in heavy clusters; or maybe they should be labelled the first

of spring, beside the wasps buzzing their way into

the purple blossoms we call ground cover.

Strange recompense this return after two years

of despair, or do I count it as nearly six.

And for those who made it (don’t count the 950,000)

we’ve reached another spring to embrace.

Yesterday, a cluster of finches migrated through the yard,

clustering on the lemon branches, with their slick

perennial leaves catching the February sun.

Hornets or maybe they are wasps, have returned

to their nests in the eaves, and I was told I really should

do something about it. We are well screened against

the honeybees returning to the chimney,

though they won’t swarm for months, until even

the light of the equinox is useless against the depth of despair.

One of the plums toppled after the neighbor hired

a man to attack the roots she perceived as invading.

It is questionable if the apple tree will return

to leaves this year. Career of time, they moved on.

The neighbors that is, and we know little of the new ones,

other than of the existence of two small boys. Children mark

a kind of time, like the bright orange perennials filling the yard,

I can’t help imagining hope when see children digging

for pillbugs in the dirt left after the sewer was replaced.

Maintenant 2022

Carol Dorf, "Spring Again" from Maintenant 16. Copyright © 2022 by Carol Dorf. Reprinted by permission of Three Rooms Press.