Spring!?
 

Hocus Crocus

We’re the focus
and the locus
when springs soak us
not to choke us
or to croak us
but provoke us
and re-stoke us
to invoke us—
so earth spoke us!

Spectator No. 3241 called for spring triolets. The thread is probably still there if you search for it. Here's mine that they published:

Every spring I quite forget
that this is just a ritual.
The warmth performs its show, and yet
every spring I quite forget
that spring is how a trap gets set.
My folly is habitual.
Every spring I quite forget
that this is just a ritual.

Actually, I just saw that they published a second one of mine (under my Erato name, Roger Slater):

I tried to write a triolet
about my love of spring
and found I had but this to say:
‘I tried to write a triolet
in praise of April, June and May
but ended up just blathering
“I tried to write a triolet
about my love of spring.”’

The arroyo toad,
to call a mate, will unload
falsetto farts. For a week, it won't desist.
No wonder it's on the endangered species list.

The mockingbird
can also be heard
making a gawdawful racket all night long,
while I grow surer Atticus Finch was wrong.

Roger Bob and Julie, thanks for prodding the essence of spring! Isn't "to kill a mockingbird" a metaphor for "to kill a poet" or any storyteller? Is to me.

Yes, Ralph, that seems to be what Robert Frost was getting at, too, in his "A Minor Bird."

But patience has its limits.

I read once that mockingbirds' main predators are Great Horned Owls, but they're noisy at night, too.

Spring has sprung,
the grass has risen.
Let Trump be hung,
or at least in prison.

Okay, I know it's "hanged," but what the heck.

My Mockingbards

Mockingbirds that mimic tunes
of springtime’s robins, larks and doves
can even voice the laughs of loons.
These avian thieves that echo tunes
inspire the bards who croon of moons
and Junes when courting their coy loves
with words that resonate the tunes
of loons, spring robins, larks and doves.

From Asses of Parnassus

For the millions who have never heard of grade-school themes about rainbows and palettes.:mad:

Spring’s Palettes

April rainbows are spring’s palettes
for painting over winter’s whiteness
with yellow, orange, green and violet,

indigo, red and blue, all drawing
bees and hummingbirds to sip
the wildest liquors (never brewed!),

those nectars deep in blooming flowers.
But our Artist reviews details
(pentimenti?), each season alters:

chiaroscuro, colors warm
to hot, those cool to cold, the strong
to weak and pale—then, unseen prism

tints, the essence of life’s light,
are every spring’s immortal palette.

This was written for LIGHT's "impossible rhyme" feature. I can't remember if they published it:

EARLY SPRING

The dew looks like silver
bedecking the lawn
in the shimmering chill ver-
nal light of the dawn.

And this from my book of children's poems, though it was originally written for a contest that required the use of the word "nascent":

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

Last year the spring came early. My snowman faced his doom.
The birds were still in Florida as trees began to bloom

and warmth returned to push aside the winter in its prime.
Last year the spring came early. It's coming late this time.

The birds who are returning find their nesting branches bare,
and some have never glimpsed before a snowman's coal-eyed stare.

My snowman gives the birds a wink, then melts away at last.
The nascent blossoms burst their buds. And winter's finally past.

Oxymoronic Don

Long proud as "Teflon Don,"
This spring he’s "Honest Don."

As the world rolls its eyes,
He manifests his lies.

Spring Rains

One April Sunday, several months after grandpa’s funeral, Dad and I drive in search of wild asparagus, cruising side roads near our home on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. He drives slowly and I soon spot a patch. Eagerly wading in, I trip and fall forward, face to face with a human skull. It’s eggshell white, with bright green spears grown up and out of empty eyes. Shaking, I call out “Dad!” He turns to see, pulls me up, blinds my eyes with one big hand, and turns me around. As we leave behind this ancient graveyard, he says, “The rains might have made it rise.”

Ray’s Snowman

When seven, Ray built a snowman:
a bulbous round on which to rest
a slightly smaller stomach span

with a strong and manly chest,
a nicely curly rounded head
and face that was the very best!

His eyes were brown, like toasted bread,
nose black, and red his nose and lips,
but what he said stayed in his head.

One March day his words were drips
slowly melting into sound:
I am you with colder lips!

SPRING IN MY STEP

They say there's a "spring in my step,"
... but I've always wondered how come a
spring in one's step is so common,
... but never a winter or summer?

And why is there never an autumn?
... It seems like a curious thing.
No matter the season or weather,
... my steps always think it is spring.

.
When Spring green springs wet and cold
leaving Winter limp and old
Summer simmers on the back burner
while Fall conspires for all the gold.

.

Good one, Jim! "Winter limp and old" rings my bell.

Yet another take:

Spring’s Artist

April rainbows are spring’s palettes
for painting over winter’s whiteness,
bliss for bees and humming birds
that sip the season’s wildest brews,
sweet nectars deep in blooming flowers.
His humans mime birds’ mating songs,
but spring’s Artist renews details,
admitting yearly errors, and alters
the energy of flora, fauna, people;
shifts light and shade, colors warm
to hot, those cool to cold, the strong
to weaker, then White—that unseen prism’s
power, the paradox of light,
from the Artist’s pentimenti palette.