Song for the First Hard Rain of Spring

Give gentleness to every crawling thing
surfacing from the drenched earth to clean air.
Underground messengers, they have brought us
what remains of the ones we loved, carry
within them the spark of father, sister,
friend. On the raindamp sidewalk you can sit
with memory, here living once again.
In their presence the vice pressing your lungs
eases, and your deep breaths draw in tulip
bloom, draw in turned soil and the season’s first 
grassmow. Come, slug and beetle, come earthworm 
of remembrance. O, Orpheus! Every
myth calls you impatient, but who among
us would not break our necks glancing backward?