Spring Symphony

 

By Christopher Bernard

 

 

Spring:            Oh! Hear my call, oh world, my home!

 

The World:      We hear your call! The traveler’s home!

 

O Spring, rejoice us now!

 

The winter’s brutal winds have gone:

The storm

Has wrecked

Its last

Redoubt.

 

The birds are flying from the south.

They perch gravely on the fence;

Appraising bush and tree, they scout

A place to nest far from the cat

That watches from the windowsill.

 

Through the crust of snow and ice

That kept asleep her summer dream,

Earth’s eyes awake

As the sun perks up the daffodil

And turns the eyes of all to him

Until the universe itself

Beyond even his sovereignty

Breaks into music by a German old

In love with his Clara, his life, his earth

For a season; till

The trees uproot,

And the canyons wake

From their cold trance,

And the bears give birth,

And the mountains dance.

 

Spring:            Now, drunk on joy, let all things dance!

Oh, drunk on joy, let all things dance!

 

The World:      Till tizzygiddygiddydizzyfizzytizzytipsy we be,

All around

We fall down!

 

Spring:            And drunk on joy, now all things dance,

(So drunk on joy, how all things dance!)

 

The World:                 Till everybody

Finds this treasure:

Love, like life,

Is pain and pleasure.

 

Spring:            Drunk on joy, you’re drunk on joy!

 

The World:                 No, you’re drunk

As a love-lorn boy!

 

Spring:                        For Spring is love!

 

The World:                 And love is spring!

 

Spring:                        Dance if you know this!

 

The World:                  (If you don’t know, sing!)

 

Spring:            Drunk on joy, let’s all dance!

 

The World:     Oh drunk on joy, let’s all dance!

 

Spring:                        So drunk on joy –

 

The World:                  Oh, drunk on joy –

 

Still drunk on joy . . . !

 

(Pause.)

 

Spring:            Oh! Hear my call, oh world, my home!

 

The World:      We hear your call! The traveler’s home!

 

All:                  O Spring, rejoice us now!

 

_____

 

Christopher Bernard is author of two book-length collections of poetry, The Rose Shipwreck and Chien Lunatique, and is co-editor and poetry editor for the webzine Caveat Lector. His third novel, Spectres (originally serialized in Synchronized Chaos as “AMOR i KAOS”), will appear later this year, from Regent Press.