Spring Fever

Spring Fever (7th April, 2010)

Sun presses prying fingers in my eyes;
‘Wake, and find the winter is slain’ she cries;
her voice resounds high, like a banshee wails,
into my slumbering conscious she flails.
Dust in my throat, birds in my ears, so shrill,
carousing, awakened, they won’t be still;
I can hear my new growths slowly swelling,
budding, blooming, my skin is shedding

and, snake-like, lithe in your velvety earth
I’m itching and scratching for my rebirth.
Mother, release me from your cycled womb,
I am ready, ripe, juice-filled, soon-to-bloom;
raise my wicked head, unleash jealous shoots,
suck, slurp and stretch down with desperate roots
in search for a natural basic truth,
in search for fulfilment and life’s sweet proof.

Come and bless me: rain on my new-born head;
come, make me wet, moisten my new-dug bed,
dampen me down with the tears of the Gods
as I flail for grip in slippery sods;
give me your lifeblood on which I might feed;
grant me my daily and unending need;
chain me not to this totem pole, restraint;
let me expand and grow, blossom and break.

Blood fish and bone, an ancient Jesus feast;
I’ll flick out my tendrils, trip up the priest
as, gaily, down the garden path he goes,
tending his flock with his watering hose;
we lower our heads to prayer at night,
good little children, with Heaven in sight;
fevered and sweaty, we bend and we sway,
might we be tempted by Devilish-day,

soon to release us from our mortal coil:
return us, Persephones, to the soil.

Jennifer Pickup