Spring Strains

In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
crowded erect with desire against
the sky⁠—
          tense blue-grey twigs
slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
them in⁠—
          two blue-grey birds chasing
a third struggle in circles, angles,
swift convergings to a point that bursts
instantly!

          Vibrant bowing limbs
pull downward, sucking in the sky
that bulges from behind, plastering itself
against them in packed rifts, rock blue
and dirty orange!
            But⁠—

(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
the blinding and red-edged sun-blur⁠—
creeping energy, concentrated
counterforce⁠—welds sky, buds, trees,
rivets them in one puckering hold!
Sticks through! Pulls the whole
counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
locks even the opaque, not yet defined
ground in a terrific drag that is
loosening the very tap-roots!

On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
at full cry! Now they are
flung outward and up⁠—disappearing suddenly!