the_inside_chance tender_square -marge piercy dance like a jackrabbit in the dunegrass, dance not for release, no the ice holds hard but for the promise. yesterday the chickadees sang fever, fever, the mating song. you can still cross ponds leaving tracks in the snow over the sleeping fish but in the marsh the red maples look red again, their buds swelling. just one week ago a blizzard roared for two days. ice weeps in the road. yet spring hides in the snow. on the south wall of the house the first sharp crown of crocus sticks out. spring lurks inside the hard casing, and the bud begins to crack. what seems dead pares its hunger sharp and stirs groaning. if we have not stopped wanting in the long dark, we will grasp our desires soon by the nape. inside the fallen brown apple the seed is alive. freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, the sap leaps in the maple under the bark and although they have pronounced us dead, we rise again invisibly, we rise and the sun sings in us sweet and smoky as the blood of the maple that will open its leaves like thousands of waving hands. 220619 what's it to you? who go blather from