The Earth Corroborates My Find Poem by Greg Bell

Stranger in town, I am alone
as I leave the Harvard COOP
(rabbit warren of books, books, books)
pleased with myself and with my find
for under my arm is a hard cover edition
impeccably edited by G.B. Harrison
of The Complete Works of Shakespeare

As I trudge through Harvard Square
my feet crunch and sink through outer
crust of snow, frozen thread from sky
to earth, that sucks at me as mud
but winter's chill on my bones is overcome
by the warmth of this my find
for all but the apocryphal plays
are now at my fingertips
destined to be well marked and thumbed
in my Shakespearean peregrinations:

From The Comedy of Errors
through the Henries and the Richards
to the sublime valedictory
of The Tempest, all here
All here Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
the cryptic, enigmatical
Phoenix and the Turtle
and the Sonnets, open windows
to the Bard himself
all of whom I feel I've freed

These many lives I carry with me
lost in this realization, when
a bird chirps my senses back
to the moment - such a moment -
aware now for the first time
the sun is peeking through
winter's miasma, melting icicles
evanescent on the trees, revealing tiny
mighty green buds a'growin'
and up through the snow

crocus pushes toward the sky
my leaping heart begins to sing
we join the chorus, ghosts and I
for it's now Hallelujah Spring!