Their dotted trails—the bee, the dragonfly—loop words
with the lush buzz of pollen sprigs;
a golden cursive across the air
spelling
______fire and chrysanthemum—
or perhaps
they carry,
one upon each wing,
____________clementine and living,
______echo and lodestone—
words humming new dichotomies with every hover and flap—
the sin of spring is this: evanescence
____________caught in the fervor of its newness—
______snapped like the strings of a violin,
an amplitude diminished by bolder life:
______the green leaves which overtake the flowers too soon,
leaves which unfurl
______into women, brides, flying out over the marketplace,
over baskets of berries, beet bundles, green stalks of leeks—
these women point from the sky, naming the merchants below,
______the mortals who ask,
____________What rift is it that joins us?
The answer is in
etching and in prayer,
______in mirth and collarbone—
in the simplicity
of cello turned goat, turned rooster, turned uncle on a roof
all traveling beneath the dream of a rich, yolk-colored sun.
____________What threshold brings us to this truth?
The answer is a town
disobeying gravity—cattle and figures of scripture,
______our daily bread,
walking with invisible wings:
____________chrysanthemum and fire,
a golden cursive across the air.