Spring Song: Very Early Morning

All the field's a hymn! All

dandelions give glory, gold

and silver. All trilliums unfold

white flames above their trinities

of leaves. All wild strawberries

and massed wood violets reflect the skies'

clean blue and white.

All brambles, all daisies,

all stalks and stems lift to the light.

All young wildflower bells

tremble on hair

springs in the bright air's

carillon touch. Last year's yarrow

(raising brittle star skeletons)

tells: age is not past praising.

All small, low, unknown,
unnamed weeds
show their impossible greens.
All grasses sing,
gone on clear tone.
All mosses spread a spring-
soft velvet for our feet,
and by all means
all leaves, buds, flowers cup
jewels of fire and ice
holding up
to this kind morning's heat
their silver sacrifice.

-- Luci Shaw (1928- ), from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation