The Birth of a Season

The Rest of My Life

March 12, 1996

Is Springtime

When I see the old woman kneeling

in hay, crooning to the lamb

sleek with afterbirth, I see,

for the first time, how my own

native gentleness inhabits

the midafternoon roadside dust

and dew spread over the morning

world. From now on

every reluctance is a lie.