My Grandfather's Crocus

"Spring is the rebellion of the
crocus wrestling with the ground;
the forsythia and the child sweat
and the earth bangs a drum"

Terra unlocks life with power dragged
from the roots of floral ascent; we pass
any street, none ours, and we fail to notice
that powerful bloom ascend to propagate itself
with slight glare on its brief green leaves.

"It is a mighty fortress of our God"

We sing that Spring when renewal crumbles rocks,
frozen dirt and the most fragile of stems bend
the ground, wrestling, never standing back, forced
towards salvation; -- one isolated purple flower
lives just weeks, before it falls down
to the garden at the abyss, vital again as our sun
stores collected light in tubers; so much armor, so
calm when we touch that bulb, carefully splitting it,
so it will grow stronger, more resolute, even more
ferocious than mankind. Imagine if we had that power,
resisting frost, not dividing, and on those frozen nights,
then we could face silence as we fear eternity.

Do not whisper the word death in our presence.

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Art by Sean Farragher