Breathing Season

Breathing Season

Spring is awakening
cracked cloudy eyes retreating from the dark edge of sleep
into sharp sunlight and the inarticulate voice of hunger
to discover the satisfaction of abundance
Filling in the missing months
with the flavor of fat from foraging

It is the release of wanting and waiting
The measure of held breath between trees
The anticipation of secrets within shells
and the pain of wounds from wombs
The untold stories of unborn babes
cutting beginnings from the morning
with the awkward motion of sharp legs

Spring is the breathing season
when the sky unlocks ice
and rain remembers falling
When the earth exhales in flowers bees
and drinks in honey fruit and sun

Spring is stretching
the image of everything unfolding
pushing up from the center
towards the center
fighting gravity and darkness
to find expression in light and heat
It is the expansion of the evenhanded sun
until the days on all eight corners of Earth are equal

Spring is discovery
Uncovering new bodies where children once were
The sly extension of interest
and the secret exploration of stories told best in twos
on nights warm enough to touch
when moon’s eye open turns black to silver-blue
and skin to milky white
so that disturbing the still body beside her
could send ripples through his skin
So she does not touch him, afraid if she did
she might find herself nestled next to nothing
but her distorted reflection
at the end of a sticky dream
Instead she merely admires him
Silent
like marble in the moonlight

Spring is a beginning
the start of solar cycles
a single revolution spent spinning in space
Circles ended in winter
are reborn in spring
full of mouths and hunger and blood
alive in God’s season
waiting on color and sun