While Spring Opens So Softly

I have found that each human—myself and all others
Have a place inside them all dry and damp, both desert and swamp, into which they are tempted to go

And when they do, they low the song of how they cannot be loved
Some crying it, growing addicted to their tears
Some pushing it down, to avoid facing that awful lion they fear

In that place of dark woe, where every atom of existence shudders before the light of knowing
The soul becomes a mouse, over whom the hawk shadow passes and the coiling snake sings
And all this while the pink spring opens up so softly, as a dancer who does not have to think,

And the earth, heedless of its own grave beauty or the thought that there might be no sky to rain on it,
Gives not a glance at its own tender self,
Instead feeding all things with dirt, and soil, and green
And so gives us spring