Thaw
The morning brought snow-mist and the piping
Of chicks in a bower. The eave-drips hit
The roof slates like a typewriter typing –
Sixty words a minute, a thousand words
A page — the manual of spring, as it
Unfolded past the ledge. In all the yards
Along the street, in the yawning houses
Emerging from dreams, passions flared to life.
Marvelous the way the brain unfreezes,
Stutters, thumps, and at last begins to hum,
Off-key, the melody of stem and leaf,
Written, by God, in the delirium
Of sun-glare and pollen. The clotheslines bloomed
In the afternoon, and if a boy dreamed
Of flight he was sure to fly, wings be damned.
Picture his flawless arc across the sky
In the twilight of the day, when it seemed
That every voice of nature joined to cry
Hosannas unending: O Lord, they sang,
O thinker, O author of everything…
What more could they say? When the half-moon rose,
Every weary eye began to close.
by Daniel Patrick Sheehan
Twitter: @LVStories
Editor’s Note: Precise imagery and delightful sonics drive this poem from start to finish.
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