from "Windflowers" / Mark Turbyfill (2 poems)

The Pulse of Spring

The spring has spilt a shining net
Of green-gold buds
Upon the boughs
Of this gray linden-tree.

The hyacinth has lit its torch of amethyst.      

A robin sways upon a bow-curved twig,
And sweetly cries.

O spring, forbear!


Oh that Love Has Come at All

I am he who expects too much.
The high keen edge
Of dreams is not sharp
Enough; and the rose
Is not enough red.      
I am tired with emptiness,
For love has not come swift enough.
But do thou weave, O heart,
A slender song:
Touched      
That love has come at all!

~~

Mark Turbyfill (1896-1990)

from Poetry, May 1917

[Poems are in the public domain in the United States]

Mark Turbyfill biography