OVERTURE (or crescendo)
Through winter nights and storms
we lie in coma
stirring
only to some dream
turning together
in our quiet bed.
Till
in deep recesses
of their tangled woods
your Arum
nudges back the damp packed Elder leaves,
a signal of returning life.
In the coolest light of dawn
your veins
speak softly purple through their temple flesh
like timid balloons of Crocus
hiding the full richness of their blooms.
Stretching then awake
your practiced limbs of Coronet
invent the sun.
They glow with milken splashes
across tender greens,
above Azalea tides,
that hold within their petals
white and scarlet streams of spring aroused.
In this wild bed we roll and tumble
catching to our cheek and loin
the burning blush
and blinding flash of Flame
These blooms will go their evanescent way
leaving a breathing and a drying time
before the setting of the Annuals in formal lov
and raking of the summer leaves.
–– Joseph Locke