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In Case I Forget to Say it Enough

Thank you for this day made
of wind and rain and sun and the scent
of old-fashioned lilacs. Thank you

for the pond and the slippery tadpole
and the wild iris that opened beside the pond
last week, so pale, so nearly purple,

their stems already flagged and bent.
Thank you for the yellow morels hiding in the field grass,
the ones we can only see when we are already

on our knees. And thank you for the humming
that rises out of the morning as if mornings
are simply reasons to hum. What a gift,

this being alive, this chance to encounter the world.
What a gift, this being a witness to spring—
spring in everything. Spring in the way

that we greet each other. Spring in the way the golden eagle
takes to the thermals and spirals up to where
we can barely see the great span of its wings.

Spring in the words we have known
since our births. Like glory. Like celebrate.
like flowering. What is it in us that longs to unfurl,

to expand, to open up and leap out—
something feral, unnamable, something
so fierce it can push through the crust of the soil,

something so vulnerable it can freeze and overnight
disappear. Thank you for this return to exactly
where we are, this greening, this bright roar

of the river rising, this swooping
of swallows, this leafing of lettuce,
this now, this yes, this here.

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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