Spring is a lover.

It stirs in chills at daybreak.
There is no light, just shivers.
Then gray hints to one side, or does it?
Ease furls under eyelids. Murk quickens, lightens.

Each day the hints lengthen.
There is time to get there; be there; leave.
Hints fill in, fill up; and dawns are wishes, sunsets longings.

And then it's here: before and after, no doubt in any eye.
It is desire returned, bestowed--on you.
It is love falling--nothing you wanted; it just does you.
And the world goes on, so you go on.
What is new is what is between, behind, bigger than a world.

By May the world and you are right.
And it just gets better, balmier, whole days longer.
Life is not how things should be; "should," simply is.
And in June all is bloomed: not shouted, but smiled.

And on June 21 you take the full breath of solstice like a right:
Why, look here, and there--proof.
You look in a lover's eyes, and are returned, brimming.

The next day the same gaze gazes short;
you don't see something is turned, is changed.
All week is full as can be, but slightly coasts.

It coasts almost all July; will not admit of passage.
Though August heats more, winds and fog stop altogether, altogether is it slipping.
That ever-so-less gaze hid a fickleness,
and fulfilled turns to longing, unconscious first, ignored.

And too soon, hmm, time is short: it can't be dusky yet, and why didn't I wake? Feelings, aroused, slim forlorn. Good feelings call effort.

And you pass the jilting to a callus, to fall.

Michael Harris