Judgement by Spring Rain

Some snarl-faced poet
in his weedy, unfenced youth
booted age into the winter season—
Would that age had the energy
of a blizzard or the bite of zero
or even the sculptured thoughts
lying in cold patterns on drifted snow.
Watch for the thirst for change
when a March sun gets a real foothold
in the sky and the drifts melt.
Patches of ground widen under trees,
see the debris that rides up,
a broken-backed board,
a double-faded newspaper with
who knows what headlines, junk from
the past— these show an aged mind
at its worst.
A spring rain will swell roots,
make them bulge with a sprout
or bloat in decay.