birthday poem

Pry up the pavement
From the darkened seedbeds, to loosen summer grasses –
Yellowed white where light’s forgotten –
Under stones’ dank smell of soil;
Where yearning life
Awaits new eyes.

Plant something in the well-trod turf
Named “OURS” in all the city’s languages –
Some gone ahead, gone down
And yellowed, pale,
Where all men (grass) must go.
That new sod
Sprung from mind’s eye
Where all new life begins.

Make something real, that breathes and grows,
And sure enough
You have to reach into the dirt
With hands once white,
And play a song on honored bones –

Sneeze in the dust of long-dead ashes –

And undo the weedy tethers of Spring’s
Sleeping dream.