Song of the Turtle Unburrowing

Was it the sweet smell
of the thalia daffodil
that woke me,

the ruckus of the garden lunging
back into the world,
was it the urge
of the bloodroot?

Under leaf-mold,
under old grass cuttings
beside the southern
brick of a house

my blunt red eyes
have opened.

Not the bright smiling red
of cardinals flashing
in the leafing woods

not the redbud red—
double doses of beauty—
not me.

I was always the earth's
brown-red, almost
bereft green,

always the stone's
circular endurance.
Am I loved?

I dreamed all winter
I lived inside the soft
red cup of the tulip.

I was alchemical
without shell,

my shadow so gold
it could blind.
But look,

I still come back
like rock
caked with mud.

Deep in the subtle
mulch I risk
the spring wind

teasing my beak
as if it wished
I were the robin

flittering to remake
the nest in the mock
orange shade
I'll summer under.

If I had song
nimble enough
for the sky
how quick

the mockingbird
would lift it,
my earthborn music

how quick
it would fall and
burrow back.

Copyright © 2007 Laurie Kutchins All rights reserved
from Slope of the Child Everlasting
BOA Editions, Ltd.
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission