writing in spring

When spring comes,

I know I should be writing poetry

but what I end up doing is planting
gardens—green beans and broccoli—
scooping wet black soil, picking up
plump bugs, tugging at weeds with divinely
callused hands.
I end up bathing in waterfalls
of sunlight, next to sunflowers,
above the earth
worms.

I know I should get something on paper,

but then I’ll go bicycling between
the apple groves, up peaks
along ridges down mountains down
to the clearest stream,
meandering through earth like quilled cursive.

I’ll be going home to pen a line,

but then stop to baptize
myself in the hallowed shadow of a wizened Oak,
or in the fresh fur scent
of toddler wobbling calves.
I’m sweaty, smelly like tilled loam,
but the grass still knows
how to love; it holds me as the sun
breaks and oozes honey on horizon.

I’ll finally get home to write,

but then I’ll stay outside, carry my niece
under the ripening sky,
tell her she was formed just
a day after the Gold Finch and Blue Jay,
stay just until the light
rain dots drops on our cheeks and
kisses us clean.
The cosmos fattens, blooms
aubergine, settles on land.

Another day spoken for,
and not a syllable inked.