Indications of Spring

Close observation of anything
Changes your perception so fully
The thing perceived becomes a grouped thing,

And in this transformation debuts
Meaning, which usually remains
Private, although sometimes you can’t help

Trying to explain it to someone,
How you never miss the flowering
Of certain trees in a nearby town

Since that means spring and all of the springs
You can remember since you moved here,
Or how you know a constellation,

Not by any of its well-known names
Recorded from cultures east or west
Or indigenous, but by some name

You’ve made up for it, rearranging
Say, the Hunter, in your mind, instead
As the Condor or the Banded Goose,

And how seeing it, star wings spread out
Above your doorstep, fires memories
Going back now half a century.

Meaning’s always personal, to start,
Observation reconfiguring memory
As gravity clusters galaxies.

You have to get others to attend,
To attend and to compare, to bring
Their own memories, to grow meanings.