My Grandfather's Crocus

My Grandfather's Crocus

           Spring is the rebellion of the crocus
           wrestling with the ground;
           the forsythia and the child sweat
           and the earth bangs a drum.

Terra unlocks life with power dragged
from the roots of floral ascent; we pass
any street, none ours, and we fail to notice
powerful blooms driven to propagate
with slight glare on brief, green leaves.

"It is a mighty fortress of our God"

We sing that spring when renewal
crumbles rocks and frozen dirt.
The most fragile of stems bends
the ground, wrestling,
never standing back.
Then we force blooms to salvation;
-- one isolated purple flower
lives just weeks, before it falls down
to the garden in the abyss,
vital again as our sun
collects light in tubers;
so much armor, so calm when
we touch that bulb,
carefully splitting it,
to grow stronger, more resolute --
even more ferocious than mankind.

Imagine if we had that power,
to resist frost, to divide,
and on those frozen nights,
we could face silence
as we feared eternity.

Do not whisper the word death in our presence.