snowdrops, feb 10. Photo credit: Eric F.
by Mike Zhai
The years are not the same to each — in roots
Something awakens, knowing winter’s past,
The soil’s turning warm — the signal shoots
Something awakens, knowing winter’s past,
The soil’s turning warm — the signal shoots
Up toward the tips of branches: Time at last
To bud and bloom! The messenger’s delay
Takes two weeks to be relayed up the trunk,
By then the Spring’s already underway–
A mist of tender green; white flowers sunk
Amid the undergrowth and ashen mat
Of deaths the river took a year ago.
Its watery torso rippling twists and heaves,
Transports the past and present life — just so
May I go winding through the faces that
Like mine, change color quickly as the leaves.
To bud and bloom! The messenger’s delay
Takes two weeks to be relayed up the trunk,
By then the Spring’s already underway–
A mist of tender green; white flowers sunk
Amid the undergrowth and ashen mat
Of deaths the river took a year ago.
Its watery torso rippling twists and heaves,
Transports the past and present life — just so
May I go winding through the faces that
Like mine, change color quickly as the leaves.
***
Mike Zhai, co-author of Li Bo Unkempt, lives in Ypsilanti and teaches poetry at the University of Michigan. The poem is inspired by the first weeks of Spring, when new growth is palpable but not yet visible.
***
This is an original poem, brought to you by Poet Tree Town, an Ann Arbor-based poetry-in-public initiative and celebration of local Washtenaw poets. Find out more about Poet Tree Town on Instagram and Facebook, or say hello at poettreetowna2@gmail.com.
It is rare to feel so much of life’s raw momentum delivered in the form of a humble sonnet – least of all inspired by the everyday and mundane shifts embodied by geologic time and its familiar acts. Mike Zhai is like a skunk face to face with Baudelaire – one ambling affectionately from its dimly visible world to curl around the sandals of symbolism, purring softly against bemused poet-toes who stand amazed and grateful for long vacant warmth.