April Snow

POEMS OF SPRING

April snow - four inches and more - and a full moon, penumbral.

My shadow projects in palest gray.

From marsh water, cold and black,

in repeated measures of varying time

of soprano peep and alto trill

(the one an upbeat to the other),

comes the pure open interval of a fourth.

Then all at once and only once

the peeper sounds in accented lilt

a full perfect fifth above the trill,

as if the creature, a born soloist,

with supreme effort, from that black cold,

has, in vernal celebration,

outdone itself.