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PRE-OP SPRING DAY IN MARCH 2022


It's been too long till spring -

    is false. It's here, in time.

just as it always was, a thing

    like a wheel or a poem, rhyme;


that is, it has its schedule,

    takes its turn, happens as it does.

Still, the sun climbing trees, I'm full

    to bursting with light's to and fros.


All is event, like thought, argument,

    war or love; like a pacemaker

device, implant I fear to have, spent

    hours returning like a general to their


tent. It's life itself that surveys

    maps, terrain, future battlefields.

Nothing less than this glorious day

    of impractical miracle-sun, big yields,


obliterates memories of lockdown, shelters

    underground, darkness that preys

on mind and heart-valves, those skelters

    that turn about like unlovers, May's


dancers around the burgeoning pole.

    I'm alive, for now, pre-op, thoughtful,

re-reading The School of Donne, again,

    to be reminded of a deceased friend


to look at a brilliant mind as a season

of circuity, shock, and curative reason.


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