If It Were Spring

If it were Spring

and I killed a man,

I would change him to leaves

and hang him from a tree,

a tree in a grove

at the edge of a dune,

where small beasts came

to flee the sun.

Wind would make him

part of song,

and rain would cling

like tiny crystal worlds

upon his branch

of leaf-green skies,

and he would bear the dance

of fragile bone,

brush of wings

against his maps of arteries,

and turn up a yellow-stomached flag

to herald the touring storm.

o my victim,

ou would grow your season

as I grew mine,

under the spell of growth,

an instrument

of the blue sky,

an instrument of the sun,

a palm above the dark, splendid eyes.

What language the city will hear

because of your death,

anguish explain,

sorrow relieve.

Everywhere I see

the world waiting you,

the pens raised, walls prepared,

hands hung above the strings and keys.

And come Autumn

I will spin a net

between your height and earth

to hold your crisp parts.

In the fields and orchards

it must be turning Spring,

look at the faces

clustered around mine.

And I hear

the irrefutable argument of hunger

whispered, spoken, shouted,

but never sung.

I will kill a man this week;

before this week is gone

I will hang him to a tree,

I will see this mercy done.