Spring Suddenly

after long weeks of waiting,
of dead lambs in the snow,
green daffodils, all stalk
and no trumpet, a single
brimstone’s drunken flight,
the silence of owls –
                     
spring happens
in a flash, a cymbal crash
of colours –
forsythia yellow, maythorn white
and cherry pink – zing zing zing –
all mad and new –
the sky a bluebell blue,
tulips shouting red,
bursting buds and eggs and mouths
flinging open to the sun –

an orchestra of birds –
the skylark’s piccolo,
cacophony of rooks,
loud guttural
fanfare of pheasants,
a cockerel’s brassy cry,
crescendo of swifts
screaming like demented violins –

then, gradually –
sweet measured grace notes of the warbler,
wood pigeon’s sleepy sostenuto,
the fading of those first outrageous blooms –

muted, we sigh and settle
contentedly into summer.