Spring

"Spring´s pardon comes, a sweetening of the air,

the light made fairer by an hour, time

as forgiveness, granted in the murmured colouring

of flowers, rain´s mantra of reprieve, reprieve, reprieve.

The lovers waking in the lightening rooms believe

that something holds them, as they hold themselves,

within a kind of grace, a soft embrace, an absolution

from their stolen hours, their necessary lies. And this is wise:

to know that music's gold is carried in the frayed purse

of a bird, to pick affection´s herb, to see the sun and moon

half-rhyme their light across the vacant, papery sky.

Trees, in their blossoms, young queens, flounce for clemency"

(by Carol Ann Duffy, in the book Rapture, 2005, Picador)