Has summer yet spoken,
even a whisper to the new soil
on one of the humid sudden days?
We are so far from rot—yet.
The stalks and buds
carry not simply seed.
The dogwood’s spur of its leaves
has the whisper of when
and how to drop.
This is the moment of before—
when new is a hue, a green
too light for heat, too plump
with the water only abundant
now. The first scent of burnt
sugar will be the iris flagging
and the crabapple blossoms
turning like milk, drifting
into the street in spring’s last snow.