after Millard Sheets’ 1976 painting “Bursting Spring”  

Time in its onrush of circumstance
stirs brilliant white blossoms, aburst on branches,
each snowflake-unique, each fated to pass:
Spring's dazzle of unceasing avalanche.  

This advent’s a gracing of vast delight,
an offer of blooms like an ocean of cloud
consoling our losses. With heads unbowed
we unthink the notion of coming night.   

Like shouts that swell past the far side of loud
these trees go insane with the surge of Spring;
in shade of the blossoms the horses crowd,
an impossible brightness to everything.