Spare Us.
Spare us the spring. Spare us its garish light. Spare us the nerve-thumping rhythms of hopping halls: empty vessels, sterile leather eggs. Spare us the false optimism, the short-term vision, the hint that winter has been dealt a fatal blow, that days will keep on stretching, an economy in boom. Spare us the emotion of the choked-up lawnmower champing at resurgent grass. And spare us, no less, the need for wonder: it demands too much suspension of belief. Spare us our jaundiced view of daffodils, those cliched ingenues that wizen limply into spineless stalks. Spare us the tawdry pink of cherry blossoms, so precariously attached to branches they are bound to fall to pieces, crumble at the first blusterings of a gale. Spare us the shivering snowdrops, paling quickly to insignificance, their holier-than-thou aura melting like Communion hosts. Spare us the scare tactics of invading dandelions, that urine splash from which no clump of grass, no roadside verge is safe. Lump in the leaves--it will be left to us to pick up their pieces, rummage through their trash when the tree market crashes and stocks are in freefall. And spare us lilacs, scent so over-ripe suspicion of some cover-up is strong. Spare us the lambs--bouncing with complete abandon, needing no counsel of a carpe diem nature, peeking from the milk-white fleece of their mothers' blanket coverage, or savouring mint-green grass --on whom we pin dark, raddle-marked declarations of intent. Spare us the ardent couples conferring at the paint store, torn conspiratorially between Dewberry Frost emulsion and velvet-finish Moonlight Bay. Spare us the bees raiding every flower in sight, leaving no anther pocket unturned. And the tantrum-throwing wasps, in venomous mood, headbutting glass. Spare us the spurned bird, egg on its face, its singsong persistence in soliciting a mate, its loutish whistling at wing-batting females. And spare us the dawn chorus that outwears its welcome like a loquacious breakfast guest. Spare us, therefore, the spring, its fake sincerity, its unethical marketing strategies, its deceptive pledges, its built-in obsolescence, its weeds breeding like flies.
DENNIS O'DRISCOLL was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1954. He has written eight books of poetry, three chapbooks and a collection of essays and reviews. He has also edited and compiled contemporary quotations about poets and poetry and has published a book of his dialogues with Seamus Heaney. A new collection, Dear Life, is scheduled for publication by Anvil Press in 2012; an American edition, from Copper Canyon Press, will follow in 2013.
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| Title Annotation: | five poems |
|---|---|
| Author: | O'Driscoll, Dennis |
| Publication: | The American Poetry Review |
| Article Type: | Poem |
| Date: | Jan 1, 2012 |
| Words: | 458 |
| Previous Article: | Ode to Forgetting the Year. |
| Next Article: | Valentine. |
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