caress a softer wind

I watched the sun splash and play

Rise up in joyful coronas and spray,

In the drips, the hardness of winter fades slowly away

It is only a moment in a welcomed warming day

But it seems so much more… as spirit rises to thank

The miracle that is always near, the star that loves us.

I stand in the gold and glow and know

there is the spring within that reaches out

to touch a beam, and caress a softer wind.

The eye leads the advance as falling waters

dance upon the snowless gray, and sidewalks

so ordinary raise heads like new green of the season

and we begin the slow shed of the little inward dread

of air too cool, and hints too cruel...now

the radiant sky has learned to paint an upturned smile.