Spring has sprung (but not quite in Seattle) - William Carlos Williams' poem Spring And All

by William Carlos Williams

I

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind.  Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter.  All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens:  clarity, outline of leaf


But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them:  rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

                ---o0o---

A chicken in the backyard in Bucerias (Nayarit, Mexico)

click to enlarge

A Mexican backyard in Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico. Now, this kitchen has some elbow room! This backyard is great! There is a laundry, a cooking area and dishwashing area, lines for hanging clothes, a huge box of the glass jars from devotional candles (you know, the tall candles in glasses wth pictures of Madonna or one of the Saints), a sack of beans (the greyish frijoles usually found in Nayarit and Jalisco...I don't know their actual name, but they're similar in texture to a pinto, with a slightly more earthy taste like, say, a field pea, or a black-eyed pea), and a lot of other things that don't fit in the house.

And one chicken. The lone chicken standing by the water bucket, reminds me of the wonderful imagistic poem by one of my favorite American poets:


The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
---o0o---