Spring Cleaning (or: Lessons from Kenneth Grahame)

Now winter has spiraled to an end,
and the ice has cracked enough to reveal
crystal memories long buried.
I plunge my hands into frigid water
to uncover every teardrop of the season.
And so begins the task of the spring:
to piece the shards together
(quickly! before they melt, before the edges slice your tender hands),
to make some sense of what I’ve cried.
Only the most perfect image could make my trembling heart whole again
(and if you find it lacking, you have not cried enough).
Then after that:
last year’s fires must be re-kindled, dead gardens must be revived, each wall needs a fresh coat of paint—

Oh, but what does any of it mean?
How could it mean anything? when outside everywhere the sun is gleaming,
the streams are bubbling their most joyful melodies,
and each mountain and valley, every great expanse is beckoning
here, here, here!
I throw off the weights I have long fastened to my ankles
(to make my legs stronger, to learn from every fall)
and find that I can fly.
Look, from this bird’s eye view, at the kaleidoscope proof:
love is not dead, trapped beneath shivering snows,
love is born again—
like the mole’s snout poking through the dirt,
I am born again!
When the night falls and my wings tire,
I shall tumble down to soft grasses and gaze upon the widest sky.
Here, where the snow queen has no dominion,
every constellation spells eternity.
And even I, lonely pinprick of dust that I am,
can reach above and grasp the stars.