Spring is big, sprawling, scary. I’m a lover of autumn because it vibrates in sync with my favorite music but I think spring is my favorite season because it is growing along with the rest of us. As humans in this modern thing called society, we aren’t allowed much rest, we don’t get to follow the patterns of the seasons intentionally. We all have periods of big growth and boggy seasons that feel like absolute stagnancy as our bodies attempt to regulate to our constant motion, ceaseless urging for productivity. Springtime is maybe the only time where that bursting optimism and ambition feels realistic. Everything is growing so quickly because it only has so much time with this ever-arching sunlight, the bodies are thawing out, shaking off the restful numb of the winter. I find myself doing a little dance every morning, warming my limbs to the idea of big motion again.
Spring can be crushing, too. Sometimes the optimism collapses. Sometimes the warmth caressing the bones can be a reminder of an old touch that is no longer ours. Sometimes spring can jolt the body with the suddenness of aging, the exhaustion of working too hard through the winter instead of resting. Sometimes the spring pummels with emotions we realize all at once we haven’t felt since the last time the air was warm enough to kiss the skin. I’ve found it’s a time for planning, for lots of inbreath to stretch out the lungs. I repotted my plants this past weekend and felt my own need to give my roots some room to breathe. Without eclipse glasses, I watched the sun get swallowed through my phone screen and felt my own resistance to getting big and beautiful again. The trees are patient in pushing their tender leaves back into the world. It’s still early days, the growth should be slow and probing, searching for the safest places to unfurl—but keep the ideas ambitious. The energy will come.
Be gentle with yourself this season. You’re a plant, too.
Devotee
Can you believe it?
All the windows thrown open
All the world screaming in
And none of me rushing out
Color roars like birdsong
To the spring I am devoutBumbling, Fumbling, Old Bones
Bees really do bumble, don’t they?
You can see it
but you have to look
and I don’t think you’re looking
or really even trying–
I don’t mean to be cruel
but, well, fuck you (sometimes)
Why? I don’t know
We’re all here.
If you aren’t paying attention
then maybe you aren’t paying me–
attention, I mean
but money too (and pay me money please)
It’s just that it’s good to
look at things (sometimes)
A tree is just this obvious mirror
but you have to look at it with big eyes
like a dumb baby (all babies are dumb but
they look at everything and so they are
smarter than us. So stupid.)
What I mean is I will look at myself
in the mirror (terrifying)
and then I will lay in the dirt
and then I actually see myself
not bumbling like a bee
just farting about like a baby
Sometimes I cry about nothing
which is also everything
and I just have to do it
because I did not for so long
and now it is an easy gift to me(!!!)
Me, big little boy tree baby bumbling, on and on,
crying, on and on
Find a mirror or a tree and
watch yourself cry (sometimes)--
it’s heartbreaking for a time
and then very, very funny
What Dies in Spring
I’ll put the coffee on If you promise not to hurt me Settle into a life In love with complacency The green gets in And makes fools of us both When the flowers push through Take the silent oath But I want my love loud Like water tearing from the mountains Smoothing timeless rock Devotion in gushing fountains The sun cuts the chill But the cold still remains We’ll never be the seasons, darling All we know is rain
stockholm syndrome
the wind today is blunt wrapping my body in force i almost feel held by the violence
daba dee daba die
Blue is a spring color, too
The water building
The sky swollen periwinkle
We wriggle inside a
Robin’s egg
And I never know more tears
Than when the world opens
Wide like the long lost prairie
Reminders of all there is to mourn,
Big grief warm
Under a washed out sun
Don’t you feel it all crack open?
The blue builds inside
Until it’s above and below–
I am sad, cerulean,
But, mercifully, alivejw