Emily wrote, "A solemn thing it was I said."
There are no other lines, no punctuation, no frame of reference
from the lines above or below.
Only, "A solemn thing it was I said"
So was this descriptive, as in 'I said it was a solemn thing?'
Or declarative, as in 'I said a solemn thing?'
I think the latter, a solemn thing it was she said,
and now I want more words she said.
Or scribbled in the nooks and crannies of her little house,
her worn wooden desk,
her so observant mind.
"A little madness in the spring"
of tiny birds, brown and blue,
arriving with the waxing sun.
Surviving through the bitter dark,
flitting little miracles of life.
Or snowdrop and crocus sprigs, how do they dare
poke green defiance into ice?
They must be mad.
Or do the birds and flowers know what we cannot,
constrained within this cranium, this mammal mind?
Apart, yet part, of the same sunlight,
the same urge to life?
Do intrepid bluebirds sing the answer
in a language meant for flight, while
earthbound, we hear only sound?
Is there a knowing in the ground from which come
the seeds and bulbs unfolding slowly, so slowly
it escapes our frantic eyes?
A solemn thing perhaps I say about madness in the spring,
when ordinary miracles abound.
