Package on its way

I wait for Spring as one waits for

delivery of a package from the Post Office

— the beautiful something ordered by phone,

from a catalog.

Not that I am foolish enough to think it is I

who tells the stubborn frost-bitten months

— enough. Goodbye.



I wait for Spring while someone many flights upstairs,

and obviously in charge,

turns page after calendar page.

Finally March appears. Time to inspect the old lawn,

to explore — find signs of life, hints of change.

Perhaps a newly uncovered, leftover grassy tuft

still green, warming itself in the sun once more.

I welcome even the sloppy, mud-making rain,

because it opens up the tightly closed ground,

prods the dozing sod beneath into getting back to work again.

Suddenly I’m all ears. — Is that a robin I hear?

Hey, I recognized the little fellow, also the song he sings.

Must have been in this place before, yet he looks so brand-new.

Like a charming, much-promised gift

just pulled out of a box a postman might bring.

Laura Scribner, Goshen NY (1925 — 2015)