Spring's Witch

Catrin Welz-Stein

Spring's Witch

I wait out winter plagued by your ghost -

impatient rains whisper, winds rumour you,

caressing the skins at my windows,

speaking into the ears of my chimneys:

She's coming, says the rains.

As before, wind says.

And you do, one March day:

loud and chaotic, incanting your "oh's",

no prim Primavera, no flowers-in-toes,

but cackling as you cast off your clothes.

She's here, say the rains.

As before, wind says.

Your black hair is treacled by the rain.

You raise the wand and you conjure again

whatever love I have for living

from this world's rebirth in spring.

She's leaving, say the rains.

Gone, gone, wind says.

Brian McCabe

“You conjure again whatever love I have for living.” Spring is magic. So if in this poem the rain talks, the wind talks, and chimneys have ears, it shouldn’t surprise us. This is just the kind of thing that goes on in a world where sunlight draws up colour and fragrance from dead black ground. And it's entirely true, feeling the sun on my shoulder as I walk, I think, "There it is again, everyday overflowing magic."