Matthew Brennan: “Spring in Town”
SPRING IN TOWN
It snowed again on Sunday night. We heard
the furnace kick and groan like an old man
sleeping, but gripped in great, bone-wracking pain.
A winding sheet of ice wrapped round the roof.
Today, the sun is brushing the blue sky
with blush and fresh foundation, and a row
of golden daffodils spangles a lawn;
the same light’s bronzing the long spines of trees.
She’s fashionably late, but spring is coming.
She’ll soon rip through the threadbare coat of winter,
and will strut down the runway wearing feathers
bolder than the old man’s ever dreamed of.
Matthew Brennan has published five books of poems, including One Life (Lamar University Literary Press, 2016) and The House with the Mansard Roof (Backwaters Press, 2009). Articles and reviews have appeared in Sewanee Review, South Carolina Review, New York Times Book Review, and Elder Mountain. In 1999, Wendell Berry selected the poem “The Sublime” for the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred.