Recalling Spring

The onset of a growing time,
Buds appeared everywhere -
Announcing birth around us,
We could feel it in the air.
New life soon bloomed on hills and fields,
Inner smiles greeted its approach,
Until we remembered the past and felt
The mild memory of reproach as
The feelings of regret
That what was once is gone
Dove tailed to the eternal hope
That life will still go on.

Fields of petals, leaves of grass
Greet each year as it comes -
As microcosms of the Earth
Each being gets fewer but some
Springtimes, that is, the times of growth
That makes us more whole still.
The nature of our own lives, though,
Will not always be reborn
On the surface of the hill
Where the flowers and fruits flourish
On those first warming says,
Though what we once were may
Be beneath them -
Our part in the cycle
Becomes to nourish
Rather than to see, smell or eat them.

Each Spring anticipates the next
Whether human or in flora,
Even Mother Earth needs take a rest
Before making ready to grow more of
The things we count on it to do
When the Winter's finally past,
For humans, it is only finitely so -
Others' memories may last.

Not a funeral's dirge,
But a sobering fulcrum's lever
Of the human urge
To continue to have spring forever
Which, of course, can never be.
To enjoy the Springs we live through
Sharpen our abilities to see
And to know that the next Winter
May be our last
Is an honest and aware way to be.
When I feel I need something
That life does not bring,
I think back and recall the Spring.