Outside the civil court building in St. Louis
I sat in the sunlight beside the suicide of a stiff March wind blowing in the first full day of spring
The budding branches of trees rock erratically while their shadows dance on the concrete
The blue tongue of the wind licks about my hair that can not dare to care if the sun filled air will or will not set it aflame
All the same my body is a barrier that the wind pushes against as if to nudge me toward an infinite question
Where forth have the Gods hung me out to dry on the wind swept cloth line of a secluded time pregnant with the motion of a squirrel murmuring the age old answer buried last fall in the pocket of the earth now my poetic crown and emotional vestment flapping in the liturgical wind speak of Moses and his hallucinated friend
The tulip tree and the daffodils are in full body bloom
The tree drops its pink petals in a sweet smelling snow
I am a juror in the case against the canonical hour of spring
The prosecutor of answers weep vowels and strangled consonants while spring is left to pled its case with the evidence of the Purple Martins return to St. Louis
The sun is the judge while the wind blows its argument into a crack in the sky and the blacks are held prisoner by a chain of dandelions strung around their ankles and a handcuff of Dove’s feathers around their wrists they move in a line step by step and take their seats in the lap of lady justice
Evidence one the last of the snow have forgotten to fall where the sun’s avalanche engulf buildings and trees and the sleeping asphalt of the streets
Evidence two a small rain of green things is budding on the trees holding a visible nest of a flying creature
Evidence three the flowers of tulips are held in the feeding of its leaves beneath the shadow of an Eurasian Tree Sparrow chipping its throated song along top a rustic chain-link fence
The court room is worth 12 dollar a day a small price to pay this slave wage in the fatty country in the western world
The case is done and spring have won the blacks are released to the custody of the sun where they grow darker day by day and their darkness can not be rained away
