Spring

The wind still rustles last year’s withered grasses,
and new rain falls in this old pond to dredge
the sediment, as one more winter passes.
These eggs will hatch as hawks hunt last year’s fledge.

The days are warming, rising updrafts swelling
to lift the vultures high on lazy wings:
They will descend again, their flesh compelling,
yet as they feast a mockingbird still sings.

Some seeds have sprouted; others decomposing
are making rich the springtime’s luscious bed.
New leaves are opening on winter’s closing;
new lives come bursting out among the dead.

The hungry hawk cannot be always flying;
he, too, will topple lifeless to the earth.
The mightiest must face the day of dying;
the smallest are yet ground for spring’s new birth.

A darkness briefly covers springing clover,
a shadow intermingled with bright day
where swift the hungry kestrel passes over
before it, like the grass, shall pass away.