The Twombly Equinox

Cy Twombly, Quattro Stagioni: Primavera (1993-5)

What season is it, Cy,
when all the birds get dragged back
into the knotted tumbleweeds of their nests,

When plants curl their furry fingers around
their precious clods of earth as if they were eggs,

When the wooden sticks that pass for oars on this filthy ship
start stabbing the newly-thawed waves?

I know, I know; it’s Spring,
the season for scribbling over our mistakes,
for watching the huge purple gobs bloom
across winter’s bleak, blank canvas.
The time of year when lush, generous globules drip sap
and blow puffs of pollen.
When blossoms grow fat with the promise of fruit.
When thorns are loosed like a rain of arrows.

It’s Spring,
time for us to spin our whirling dervish dance
with our leaves and petals flapping around us.
It’s Spring, and every word is a seed
splattered with turpentine
to become a great tangle of language,
bursting into graffiti creepers
that cover the walls
and shoot their roots
deep into the cracks in the void.

Seann McCollum via Escape Into Life