Springtime, 1998

Our upstate April
        is cold and gray.
                Nevertheless

yesterday I found
        up in our old
                woods on the littered

ground dogtooth violets
        standing around
                and blooming

wisely. And by the edge
        of the Bo's road at the far
                side of the meadow

where the limestone ledge
        crops out our wild
                cherry trees

were making a great fountain
        of white gossamer.
                Joe-Anne went

and snipped a few small boughs
        and made a beautiful
                arrangement

in the kitchen window
        where I sit now
                surrounded.

Hayden Carruth
Toward the Distant Islands:
New & Selected Poems
Copper Canyon Press

Copyright © 2006 by Hayden Carruth.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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