EQUINOCTURNE

EQUINOCTURNE Had I not stopped attempting poetry 40 years ago, I might have done better with these musings, but please be tolerant. They are, at least, reasonably iambic. EQUINOCTURNE Coquettish Spring, elusive, virginal Brushes the chill of March with wisps of warmth, While brother Winter's valedictory Breaths, the harukaze, sternly greet Plum blossoms and incautious daffodils. The days grow longer, and with now in sight The Equinox of spring, the Light and Dark In perfect balance, even-handedly, The Yin and Yang co-equal, as we're told In all phenomena they tend to be, Blind to this equanimity though we are. Depending on the region you call home, It may not seem the earth is heating up; The melting glaciers paradoxically Provoke the startling blizzards unforeseen. Has nature's balance truly been upset-- "Koyannisqatsi" as the Hopis say-- Or do the new locales for droughts and floods Bespeak a larger kind of harmony Indifferent to our fleeting destiny? Whatever on the planetary scale May balance out, I can't avoid the thought That in the weather of the human heart A new ice age approaches, even where The temperatures are highest and, in thrall To atavistic ideologies, Men drive compassion from their freezing hearts And sink to medieval cruelty. The poet Robert Frost may be the one Who said it best: "Some say the world Will end in fire; some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great, and would suffice." We may not hold apocalyptic views, Nor eagerly or nervously await The end of days, but harder to deny Is something I am tempted to describe As Thanatotropism, or at least A fashion for acceptance of decline In standards of the bodies politic And spiritual alike -- for which I see No antidote but Auden's "affirming flame".

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