No Contradiction

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Spring feels that it will last forever, pure

As April air.  It feels this way and yet

It yearns for summer in itself.  The cure

For evermore is change.  To hold a net

To capture spring is like a woman’s wish

To keep a man when he has left, is gone

With all his force and sweat, a broken dish

Or worse, the end of every hope for dawn.

Spring wants to stay and wants to go, to turn

To August in its force of lust and heat.

Spring wants the snowdrops and it wants to burn

Your penetrated guts—and then move on to sleet.

  This paradox will always be. No change

    Will come.  To stay but change is never strange.

©  Phillip Whidden