Nonetheless
by Marianne Poloskey

Spring's voice was so soothing,
I dismissed its lapses in grammar
as it covered up traces of cold.
Nor was I alarmed when the wind,
injured on the corners
of the house, changed
from humming to moaning.
The yard grew into a garden
padded with grass and flowers
vivid as compliments. Green
climbed walls and fences -
shields I thought
the world could not penetrate.
When summer stretched out
its warm arms, wheat blond as sand
waved from the fields,
crab apples blushed in the trees,
and ducks pulled their shimmering
caravans of young across the pond
on paths of water. At first
the sky was clean as a mirror,
then a few clouds appeared.
Beginning as puffy accents,
merely small interruptions
in the blue sea of good
weather, they crowded in
so gradually, I hardly noticed,
just as I never notice the hours
gathering in my poems.
When the room grew dim,
I switched on the lamp,
tied a shawl around my shoulders
against the sudden chill,
and went on writing, praising summer
rather than rejecting its moods.
Reasoning things out,
I ignored the birds' silence,
did not panic when the fiery axe
of lightning split the sky
like a tree, and reminded myself
that the rumble overhead
was not war planes but thunder.
Nonetheless, by the time
I got up to close the window,
the rain had already
pushed its way in.

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