12 of 12. "March".                               

A Caribbean airflow

shampoos the brook.

The deepsea deepwarm look of

sky wakes green below

amid the rinds of snow.

Though all seems melt and rush,

earth-loaf, sky-wine,

swept to bright new horizons

with hill-runnel, and gash,

all soaked in sunwash,

far north, the ice

unclenches, booms

the chunks and floes, and river brims

vanish under cold fleece:

the floods are loose!

The sullen torn

old skies through tattery trees

clack, freezing

stiffens loam; the worn

earth's spillways then relearn

how soaring bliss

and sudden-rigoring frost

release

without all lost.

-- Margaret Avison

NOTE: This is the last one in the

series of 12 poems for March.