Neil Shepard




Spring Poem, NYC

Five years in this city and I haven’t written
A spring poem. I need to learn how to put
A passing cloud inside the steel and glass
Of a mid-town high-rise; put a blooming 
Tulip tree beside the downtown doorman
With his long-stemmed dustpan and brush scooping
Up fallen petals along with a dog’s 
Business on the sidewalk; put the man with
The leaf-blower (hey buddy, it’s just spring!)
Beside the house sparrow with its beak caught
In a grate. Put car exhaust with the leaves
That will recycle it. My mind needs to bloom 
New relations: the park raccoon and his 
Country cousin, the dumpster seagull and his 
Seacoast double. For every farmer’s daughter 
I celebrate in the hay, there’s a woman in furs 
Clacking down Broadway with 9-inch heels 
Who is her own pedestal.  Oh, what shall I do 
with this city’s profusion?  Come to think 
of it, spring’s like that, the tulips abundant, unstable,
Unstoppable, cherry blossoms making me
Forget what I was thinking – I was thinking 
The Hudson really is a magnificent 
Ocean channeled all the way to Poughkeepsie! 
All that sparkle and salt mixed with something 
Smelling of bed-rolls and clothes slept in for months. 
I was thinking – All that piney solitude 
I had in Vermont, traded for a city 
Heavy on irony, denaturing Nature 
As that old broad or god we haven’t the 
Leisure or need or magical thinking 
To long for – suddenly, over the horn-honk 
In grid-lock, over sirens of fire and emergency, 
Comes the obliterating rumble of thunder,
The cloudburst held in a fisted nimbus 
From – of all places I thought I’d never 
Utter – New Jersey, that land so fertile,
So full of spring, we loved it to death.