The robins are lying

National Poetry Month is over, and the 1st day of May was warmer and sunny all day. Osama Bin Laden is reportedly dead. We have a lot to smile about.

Ok, so I turned my back for ten seconds at the library and someone stole, my cell phone. I was gonna buy a new one, and probably switch plans or carrier anyway. And it was grand fun calling that asshole every commercial break for two hours.

Yeah, I waited 1½ hours to be seen by an academic advisor, but there’s a good chance I’ll have my Associate of Arts degree by next fall, Spring 2013 at the latest. That makes me feel young and hopeful, as Spring should. As it always does to me. As does poetry.

I wrote this one for the last meeting of my writers’ group, when there was a lot more snow on the mountains, and on the valley floor, and the skies were grey and cold.

Enjoy

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The robins are lying this year.

Chirps rise from their ruby breasts

in the tree outside my window

which struggles to sprout green sprigs,

shade from a soon sultry summer.

April showers, still wintry white,

forbid fresh foliage. Meanwhile...

Robins rustle among the shrubs,

Shivering, trilling shrilly,

singing songs of Spring.

 

The flowers are lying, too, this year.

Saffron daffodils, hardy hyacinth,

proud pansies,  and shrinking violets,

as well as rainbows of tall tulips

quiver through the snow to defy

frosted flakes, lissome faeries gawking

at hirsute mammals’ heads shrouded

tops wrapped in fur, not soft silk.

 

Even the sky lies this year:

bold white-moon nights shine,

a-shimmer with distant stars;

days blaze blue with yellow sun,

then fall ashen grey with cumuli,

rolling boulders thunder. Still robins chirp

over streaked panes, beneath eaves, sanctuary.

 

Believe my eyes or my ears?

Sight, song, sound of slush

as cars speed by in hydroplane?

Red orange yellow blue

violet white or indigo

grey or rainbows promise true?

Which sense portends the  green?

Which omen heralds an honest oracle?

 

Seasons cycle, inevitably change,

yet I doubt each year when

winter wanders a longer road

and spring lingers elsewhere,

somewhere south, nowhere north

because the blooms on flowers

and the sky and rainbows,

along with crimson-crested cardinals

and their cousins, ruddy robins

are all lying this year. And Earth,

our own mother lays under and upon

white as snow, green as grass

and lies to us this year.

This weather is for the birds!

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What do you think? Too much alliteration. It’s my one weakness. My poetic style is more sensory and rhythmic, with lots of fun sounds. No made-up words in this one, though. leave any comment about what you like or don’t like about the poem. Constructive suggestions are always good, too.

Thanks for reading...

MrW