On Wordsworth’s Birthday

Each April, the returning host
won’t be ignored.
I could have opened this poem
with the sonorous croaks
of migrating cranes before
turning to daffodils.

One April morning,
I found myself writing
as I strained to contain
another dreadful headline
until I failed to find
the apt metaphor for a madman
gassing his countrymen.

Just once, let me wake
empty as a cool dry well,
carry my rusty bucket
over the dewy lawn,
shower the violets in rainbows,
turn from their trembling petals
and call it an empty day.