cold spell

Push back the blossom
into the bud.

Push back the sea
from the shore.

Coltsfoot and hackberry,
Coughwort and bird cherry,
Back in the bud with you!
Wait for your time.

Silver birch, white birch,
hazel and horse chestnut,
Back in the bud! Do not
come before your time.

Black locust, linden.
Black locust, lime.
Do not come before your time.

Lilac, save your purple.
Dandelion, your sun.
Priest, take your turn:

Corylus avellana
Tussilago farfara
Padus avium
Taraxacum officinale
Betula pendula
Syringa vulgaris
Aesculus hippocastanum
Robinia pseudoacacia
Tilia cordata
Wait for your time.

[[ A spell ]]

[[ Jablonska, Katarzyna & Kwiatkowska-Falinska, Anna & Czernecki, Bartosz & Walawender, Jakub. (2015). Changes in Spring and Summer Phenology in Poland — Responses of Selected Plant Species to Air Temperature Variations. POLISH JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY. 63. 311-319. 10.3161/15052249PJE2015.63.3.002.  ]]

phenology 3

the velocity (almost 

two miles an hour) of 

spring is accelerating

#spring #phenology 

phenology 2

these long orange legs 

and beaks in the grass

are sworn carnivores

they have dined on frogs 

all the African summer 

while I stood in snow

now they pace the fields

wings behind their backs

watchful and expectant 

#storks #spring #phenology 

phenology 1

Now she approaches,
dressed in birds and bumblebees,
walking from the south.

the meanness of work

They put up new buildings
as fast as they can
tear down the old ones.

One fall, one morning,
one more old building
with that ornate facade

is fenced in and blasted,
pulled down on its face,
and just trucked away.

Spring come the excavators,
cranes, steel and glass,
then twenty empty stories.