Spring Comes to Short Creek

Trees,
bleached white by a harsh winter,
stand on tiptoe,
trying to snag a wisp of cloud as it drifts by,
soughing and swaying in the wind,
washing their bony fingers in the blue,
sipping the color from an azure sky.
Popping their green knobby knuckles,
they welcome spring.
Overhead, a chicken hawk ducks and swoops,
dropping indiscriminately his blackened shadow
to the verdant green lawn below,
as spring wings it way
to Short Creek.
Lilies, as amarillo as warm butter
poke their sunny heads out
from among the lacy ferns
that tattoo the shadows underneath
the pregnant lilac bush,
soon to be bursting
with a dusky heavenly scent.
From the third floor window of the old farmhouse
I spy the gray barn cat, as gris as the sidewalk,
sunning herself, sleeping the evening hours away,
dreaming, perhaps, of a plump moonlight mouse,
or an ever elusive owl.
The front cement steps, still damp from a shower,
are home to a trio of warty frogs,
who begin to play Reveille
for the bull bats,
who stretch their leathery wings,
and if the world was upside down,
and the sky was the sea,
what an acrobatic, aquatic
performance this would be.
They, splashing in the rose-gold clouds of sunset
fishing for mosquitoes without a net,
only their sonar to guide them,
the "Porpoise of the Sky."
But where is the butterfly?
Where is the butterfly,
so spring
can truly begin?

© Copyright 2011 chickpea a.k.a. Patricia Syner (chickpea at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.

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