when faces called flowers

Catrin Welz-Stein

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-

but keeping is downward and doubting and never

-it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound

and wishing is having and having is giving-

but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense

-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!

now the pretty birds hover so she and so he

now the little fish quiver so you and so i

now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found

and having is giving and giving is living-

but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing

-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!

all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky

all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea

all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

e.e. cummings

I've been waiting forever to post this poem – but April's here, so the time is right. The mountains are dancing - ! That's so funny – it makes me think of Tolkien's Ents, the trees in their dance. It would be pretty glib to say that mountains don't dance, though – I mean, how do you know? The Bible says they clap their hands, so why couldn't they dance, too? Cummings says the birds and fish are frolicing and gamboling – and I think he's right. Isn't it possible that they enjoy themselves? I remember spring on the farm when the cows were let into the newly-green meadow for the first time. You've never seen such a hootenany! Tails in the air, gawky leaps and jumps, thunderingly disorganized stampedes in no particular direction... happy cows! If cows, why not birds and fish, why not mountains – why not us?

And then that line – that amazing line -

“when more than was lost has been found has been found” - I could say that over and over. More than was lost. More than was lost! Is that possible? It would take a lot of faith, to believe that. Dancing mountain faith.

here's to opening and upward

Catrin Welz-Stein

here's to opening and upward

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap

and to your (in my arms flowering so new)

self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains; and to

a disappearing poet of always, snow

and to morning; and to morning's beautiful friend

twilight (and a first dream called ocean) and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid

down with ought with because with every brain

which thinks it thinks, nor dares to feel (but up

with joy; and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess

of whose mad skill each world of blood is made

(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

e.e. cummings

I imagine cummings and his wife walking and getting their eyes so full of spring that he breaks out with this toast "here's to opening and upward", in an exclamation of appreciation. As if to say, look at all this spontaneous up-rising and breaking out of shells and casings and dirt! Let's do the same. Let's not be held in or pent up by fear or duty or obligation - let's be what we were meant to be and do what we were meant to do with feeling and joy. Because we can. Because it's good! And because it's spring. Let's take off our masks of sophistication and knowing (all pretense) and trust the "one undiscoverable guess" that life will always break out into newness like this, and that we will flower and re-flower with it. 

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."