Premature Spring and Other Poems

By Michael Ansara

Premature Spring

Inexcusable, given the lush conditions of my life,
joy has too often been a stranger. 

Now the sun seems stronger. Mud sucks at my shoes. 
My body still moving is a blessing.

This year, winter was two days when the earth 
Cracked from the cold.  

That our bodies still move
Together is a rare blessing.

Love Poem #40

I wanted to swim in the river of wonder.
To be amazed by ants, their systems 
Of solidarity, and the complexity 
of a beehive. I wanted to wake giddy 
at the rampant mystery of it all: 

Our world. Time. Gravity, the attraction
of one body to another. Black holes. Evolution. 
The curves of half-submerged hippos,
the flicking tongue of aardvarks, the blind 
eyes of marsupial moles, the placid quiet 
at the eye of the raging hurricane.
The morning cacophony of the red winged blackbirds, 
sparrows, and scarlet tanagers, grousing and chirping 
like overexcited men at an overnight poker game.

And now I live in daily wonder that, despite all 
my blindness, all my blinkers and blunders,
I somehow found my way to you.

Annual Report

Relentlessly,
The minutes tick by. 
Slowly,
Dark waters close over my head.

I blow bubbles, 
Wobbly, small balls 
Of air.
Watch them rise,
Listening to their soft hiss, 
As if nothing were amiss.

Michael Ansara has spent many years as an organizer and activist, having
served as a regional organizer for Students for a Democratic Society and
an executive director of Massachusetts Fair Share. He is the cofounder
of MassPoetry (www.masspoetry.org) and serves on the board of Tupelo
Press. He studied writing at Lucie Brock-Broido’s Summer Workshop, Joan
Houlihan’s on line workshop, and the GrubStreet Master Memoir Class.
Michael lives in Carlisle, MA, with his wife.