Primavera Poem by Michael Shepherd

Some years, Spring steals in slow and steady,
evoking a daily increment of warmed gratitude.
Not this year: first it came too early,
then thought better of it: a nip of proper winter first
would strengthen human gratitude, thought Spring…

Now it’s trying again, reminded perhaps
that all this Easter stuff is due; and markets must recover…
the sunlight curves into that yard or too
of sheltered space in the garden where
I dare to sit, five minutes of passing sunlight one day,
ten the next, and so on.. will the warmth now
reach my medicated heart?

Botticelli – Marsilio Ficino breathing
over his shoulder, some suspect –
tried to cram all this into a 2-D version
of a moving 3-D world: the spinning top
of divine love, passing through
three worlds, the physical, mental, spiritual,
on the first day of eternal Spring itself.
A mighty work of failed success, successful failure,
God’s work depicted in a lick or two of fresh paint..

And I, sitting in the sun my fifteen minutes,
am Primavera too: sun on chest and legs,
upbeat thoughts in mind; and in that world of spirit,
the springing stirring of some memory
of that world sometimes inhabited,
where childlike wonder was the daily norm;
and later, that enthusiasm, stirring of the gods within,
that takes teenagers towards some ultimate career;
then, adult stirrings of the wiser heart:
praise; gratitude; and laughter; care, concern;
all ancient virtues loved for their own sake;
and shining there beyond, a glory and a splendour,
a light beyond belief…
these, to the wintered heart
bring again, the stronger for that testing time,
the first green showers of the loving spring of truth.