Cold Spring (2)

Tonight, as I do when I want truth, heart, solace,

I return to Elizabeth Bishop. She

tells me about that cold spring

when the violet was flawed on the lawn

and in just a few words

has told me everything and I could go on

stealing her words, making

a much better poem but I’ll paraphrase

and make her sense mine: the next day

was much warmer and greenish-white dogwood

infiltrated (infiltrated! sing it!) the wood

and petal was burned, apparently, by a cigarette-butt.

She gets close, close-up, then we’re under

the new moon watching fireflies begin to rise,

exactly, like bubbles in champagne.

It was exactly like that. And so it was

at 6am, up to mark, pouring the first

of three strong black coffees and seeing the sun,

new, as if for the first time, high and certain.

A bird flew away from it and I cried.