The Crystalline Spring Poem by Dorina Brandusa Landen

Anonymous and feisty gods
were fallen into the light of dawn.
In its golden struggle
the day seemed ready to explode.

Willow pollen was floating in the air.
With my fingers I was touching the tree
the strong and cool young trunk
receiving the enormous palm of the roots of the water
feeling how freshness
scalps me.

The time of childhood has been
a balloon up on the roof of heaven.
In the crystalline spring
my legs were swimming
like some trout.

In the forest
the honey agaric the porcini mushrooms the marigolds
were growing too high
adrift.
Under that willow shivering its branches
graceful like a lassie
I've heard in the dripping of the leaves
the infinite.

My grandparents were sent to work
whispering gnashed words
numbing all senses
the brain that made them think
and even the street ears:
we belong to the earth
soon deep down
the dark powers will take us
like some bullets
road-weary soldiers.

Never having time to be rueful
I was collecting my tears in a blade of grass
hiding them under a rock.
Unturned ages upside down heads.

consciences turned inside out like a glove
the cry bundling all fears
all joys the yell alone
modulated after the fluctuations-of-instinct
I've thrown them into the fire to burn them up.

In the mornings in the mirror
I was making myself pretty
running to the crystalline spring
- child romping with the wind
babbling amongst the leaves
breathing with the larks.

There were geraniums by the window
the crackling sound in the fireplace
there was the brook with heavy water
flowing on.
How mysteriously I seemed to see
through the transparency of the morning
the growing veins of spring.
I was plunging into the world with all my open senses.

I didn't know that my genealogic branch
was hiding a worm.
I was three
in a thin sleeveless dress
and a contract of glory with the sun.