LEAF OUT
By David McElroy, Anchorage
Leaf out is begun, King James tells
himself. Verily, the sap is risen.
He strolls his boreal keep
to the circumpolar forest,
some of it his. He thinks of Easter,
which comes late this year
and that business of the angel
with the big round stone.
If it takes a squadron of scribes,
he needs to make the mystery clear.
Now birds are making melody,
he recites, and in the long twilight
some are sleeping with open eye.
Day or night, ruffed grouse strut on a log.
Comes now the blessed birch,
those floral chartreuse leaves
pressing out the very engines of life.
The work in wood is begun. That,
and one yard chore after another
beats its drum, sings its native song.