So quick the snow is gone when winter dies,

Revealing all of fall’s neglect for me

To rake and stack and sort, and drag away;

Its only saving grace, I get to clear

The corner of the yard where I can see

Your house between the cedars on the hill.

I look to find an open window there,

The sign that spring is really here to stay.

And if I do, I take my time, with care,

So if the linen curtains breathe aside,

I’ll hear you play, again, the old piano,

Against the corner of that sun-lit room.

I’m never close enough to tell how well,

Or if with new found joy, you move the keys,

But that you play at all is good enough

For one alone with work to do on days

When half the world is coming back to love,

When half the yard still hides beneath the leaves.

Now spring again, it happened just today;

The window up, your music drifted out.

I heard it through the peepers and the brook.

It rose with all the new heat off the fields

And broke the clouds in pieces to the blue

That disregards the end of anything.

If I did get the chance, I’d tell you this:

If there were children here they’d feel it too.

Each tickled by the notes in turn they’d run;

They’d run from tree to puddle, tree and back.

They’d laugh in time with music from your hands,

And help me gather up all this debris.