Beaten like an old hound <br />Whimpering by the stove, <br />I complicate the pain <br />That smarts with promised love. <br />The oilstove falls, the rain, <br />Forecast, licks at my wound; <br />Ice forms, clips the green shoot, <br />And strikes the wren house mute. <br /> <br />May commoner and king, <br />The barren bride and nun <br />Begrudge the season's dues. <br />May children curse the sun, <br />Sweet briar and grass refuse <br />To compromise the spring, <br />And both sower and seed <br />Choke on the summer's weed. <br /> <br />Those promises we heard <br />We heard in ignorance; <br />The numbered days we named, <br />And, in our innocence, <br />Assumed the beast was tamed. <br />On a bare limb, a bird, <br />Alone, arrived, with wings <br />Frozen, holds on and sings.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mad-day-in-march/
