Lenten Weather

The bus last night

pulled in, or maybe

it was the wind.

March makes it hard

to tell the difference.

I heard it dropping

off spring and carrying

away winter, or maybe

it was the other way

around.

March makes it hard

to tell the difference.

Already the new arrivals

have started redecorating.

Familiar antique rings

that dip brown into soil

are being sanded down,

painted over copper 

green and Easter yellow.

Already what was here

has gone on living

somewhere else, which

is the way of light and life

in between those ravenous

distances from galaxies 

to stars, from last year’s

bulbs to this year’s flowers,

from what we think no longer

exists to everything beneath

the weight of absence

that somehow still 

hungers to reappear.

Already another season’s

turning is trying to teach me

how to hold two conflicting

truths at once, which is the

most exhausting, expensive 

form of reconciliation.