The Changes

lilacs erupt and splash the air             the heart sings its memory

as it gathers seeds scattered by death’s glass-gloved hand

warm air rises from thawed fields                   it corkscrews

through budding quivering trees                                 while an infant

suckles the lavender breast with the distant eye of a sun-drawn lake

the seedsong is everywhere               

of nature

opening within nature

the heart remembers these changes

it remembers that morning when the wet fog

turned another key

                                                when you woke

and she was there waiting in her sleep for you

to wake her                

how in shadow she shines.