that precise moment

however foul the times or difficult the ways are
through those personal morasses this change of age
won’t let a single being (rich or poor) be free from
come spring the trees get on with their blossoming
you’d think they didn’t read the newspapers

you’d think the media hadn’t yet found a way
of getting to them conveying the miserable truths
this creaking into a new century has been unleashing
come this spring (like any other) the ignorant trees
still feel compelled to get on with their blossoming

see all the journalists commentators politicians
shaking their fists from within closed windows
and choking on the fug of their smoke-filled rooms
with all this bitterness about – what are trees doing
getting on with their blossoming – bringing beauty out

that’s a dead word – beauty – no time or place for it
(except on page threes where people go to leer
to forget the miserable world sitting on their doorstep)
come spring how shocking to find trees don’t agree
a bad habit that – to get on with their blossoming

of course it won’t last – three weeks or so it’ll be gone
then we can all go back indoors and forget trees
and how they get on with their blossoming spring in
and bad spring out – there’s no such thing nowadays
as the natural law – blossom on trees – a thing of the past

luckily for each one there’s a small corner in the dark
where a light is stored and a gasp of delight survives
and a song is on the point of again bursting into hearing
at the mere thought of a one-time blossoming tree
come spring – at that precise moment when the tree

decides the winter’s been enough and its light side
should now be burgeoned to the world – then in the quick
of each denying being (wilfully or reluctantly or what)
a blossoming takes place also – is noted and then
put aside – its hope is not forsaken – spring survives