And the ignorant armies, let them eat--beautiful soup

. . . as when, startled to the quick
    by a wraith of fresh air, you let go
your tight fist of keys–for bodies contain no locks they
understand beyond praline, pramsqueaks on afternoonstreets
paved with pate the far grass calls, and each call is answered
rite courteously: listen, this is how
     waterfalls never cease
     fumbling into foam (’til
     finally fiefofumfreed for fun
frolicy fish flicker child-eyed) and darting, as chesnut candle
flame speaks in speartips from the nave of no forest. Demobbed
from early warning messenger rounds, white doves and blackbirds jam
and moult together–deactivating land-mines by jamming them
with feathers, and jamming beaks in jocular upsurge to
full-throated incantation–to conjure back
the dreams of rivers inside clouds; whose burst
orchestra winds shale out first fruit–reborn
renegade artilleries of leafwhisper, stirring
flares of the wild pear . . . the living day
lights     a clearing     for take-off
     every wych-way–flight of the May blossom
or late traces of sticky buds, resins
inform the night, touching on tomorrows’
delicate hailstorms–sprays of Hawthorn and
rosehip bullets, pine cone grenades. spiky mace-encased
satin lucencies of conker–branch-hung fuse of secrets loaded
to such a swelling pitch of close-packed tension
as if by order
                     to be blown
                                        to mortal coils
–even as the roof-rattling battery of cob,
soft-satcheted walnut bombs, velvet moleskinned
nuggets of almond, pile-up of the spoils
of peace
             ordains the reawakening
of new season’s promise     in each festive heart
unfolding     to this moment’s sun . . .