SPRING STRAINS

by: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

      N a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
      crowded erect with desire against
      the sky--
      tense blue-grey twigs
      slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
      them in--
       
      two blue-grey birds chasing
      a third struggle in circles, angles,
      swift convergings to a point that bursts
      instantly!
       
      Vibrant bowing limbs
      pull downward, sucking the sky
      that bulges from behind, plastering itself
      against them in packed rifts, rock blue
      and dirty orange!
       
      But--
      (Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
      the blinding and red-edged sun-blur--
      creeping energy, concentrated
      counterforce--welds sky, buds, trees,
      rivets them in one puckering hold!
       
      Sticks through! Pulls the whole
      counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
      locks even the opaque, not yet defined
      ground in a terrific drag that is
      loosening the very tap-roots!
       
      On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
      two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
      at full cry! Now they are
      flung outward and up--disappearing suddenly!

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