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Spring Ritual
Three figures approach the house all dressed
and made up and plant themselves in the garden.
The boy has a tambourine tapped to
a certain rhythm accompanying, on cue,
his two female companions,
who link their arms
and roundly dance
in one direction
then the other
back again
holding their hats
and ruffling their skirts
at every turn.
A melody is faintly audible, a soft murmur
picked up by the breeze carrying the sound
across fields and into the embryonic ears of the
soonly-sprouting corn and the blossoming buds.
They have been waiting all winter for this.
It should be a good season, they tell me.
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from FIELDS SONGS
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