Your Tulips

Got five minutes to write the poem I started yesterday!

Thanks to all who voted for me for Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere(R). I love the registered mark. I'm going to put it after damn near everything from now on. I was not a Winner(R), but I feel very warm inside(R) nonetheless.

Beltane

From early on, I stopped paying
Attention to the numbers
Of books lent, kisses given
And received, numbers of nights spent
Crying, either on each other's sofas
Or in each other's arms, or beers,
Or any rounds passed around--
The return on keeping
Track of these is mean.

But track I did the phases
Of the moon, the path of sun,
The rise and fall of bodies
Of water, the week to expect
Certain fruits and flowers,
When to look for mud or drought
Or storms. The earth's clockwork
Fueled my faith in abundance.
I knew more would be given.
On Beltane, at my feet lay
A nectar-sticky tulip poplar flower,
A full month before blooms of other years,
A full month before the bees
(Fewer every year) come to harvest,
And I felt the outrage of betrayal.