Marcy's Assignment for This Week

A poem by Sir Marcus Hambone Muzzlefoot
On the first day of spring
1602

Awakening with the dawn I sigh.
My eyes protest the intrusion of sun’s essence.
It is warm and golden,
But still I drag winter in my bones.

I step out into the morning
And in an instant I am Illuminated.
The equinox is upon the world.
The air smells of wet earth,
A muddy gristle of dirt and worms,
And a faint waft of hyacinths.

I walk to the beach, the sun stirring movement,
I can feel the blood of the trees slowly beginning
To move within their bark encrusted shells,
Sap flowing through soft plant matrix
I feel it too, as my bones warm.

A sandpiper chirps, my shoes sink in the wet sand.
Tide has moved out, and the sea has revealed
The morning’s treasures.
I pick up a seashell, pink and orange
Something’s home it was.
I breathe in the sun as the waves lap at my ankle.

And I thaw.