It May Be Cold, But It's Still Spring

I couldn't help but post this poem, what with the NPR reference, the quotable platitude, the blue sky, and the Zen Buddhist themes. 

It's spring. Driving home on tree-lined Route 18 yesterday, the grey limbs of all the trees had their nails painted with red buds. If I was an amnesiac, I wouldn't believe green leaves would come of it. Thus the miracle of life reveals itself yet again. In a cosmic echo, I was on my way to get my own manicure, a rare play date for my hands. Because, why not? This life, despite what we sometimes make of it, it ain't too bad, is it?

Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'

by Barbara Crooker

Today, the sky's the soft blue of a work shirt washed

a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step. On the interstate listening

to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist

say, "The universe is not only stranger than we 

think, it's stranger than we can think." I think

I've driven into spring, as the woods revive

with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy

scarves flung over bark's bare limbs. Barely doing

sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,

and aren't we just? Just yesterday,

I read Li Po: "There is no end of things 

in the heart," but it seems like things 

are always ending—vacation or childhood,

relationships, stores going out of business,

like the one that sold jeans that really fit—

And where do we fit in? How can we get up

in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,

put one foot after the other, open the window,

make coffee, watch the steam curl up

and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls

in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,

lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.

The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop

for the thousandth time. 

- from Line Dance. By way of The Writers Almanac.