Spring Poem by Roy Ballard

The air announces it: the coming Spring.
Bring me my canvases. Break out a chest
of paints and brushes. See how I can fling
as many colours on the board as Spring.
But Spring is brazen, flaunting cherry, peach,
in shapes and colours far beyond my reach.
It struts its yellow ranks, its greens and whites,
brave little colours borne through bitter nights,
parading now for Spring who woke and dressed
in orpiments and limes and lemon greens
the oak, the ash, the lime itself, the beech,
late ragged beggars standing forth like queens.
I cannot copy this. I own defeat
and lay my brushes down before the feet
of lovely Spring.

Bring my guitar then. I have heard the Spring,
calling with cooing doves the coming sun,
singing for summer, clapping on the wing,
impatient with the winter barely done,
commanding choruses of dawn aloud
with all the birds of heaven in a crowd.
I'll tune my strings. I'll serenade the lark.
I'll sound the songs I have in memory.
Dawn with the blackbirds, eve with thrushes; dark
for nightingales to come and sing with me.
But every Spring surprises every ear
with better songs than any heard last year
and memory falls short. Spring, you must choose
to praise yourself or find another muse.