Now May
Alicia Ostriker

Now May cries out again, I’m here, I’m here
until tulips roar like lions, daffodils scream like witches
robins puff their chests out, sumptuous maples shout

for a wind to come over and wrestle, but as for us
we belong to the species that thinks it can change the laws
we are the ones that trample and soar and bulldoze

what interferes—she wipes mud from her brow, I’m here
in my beauteous majesty, but we are a little horrified
just half recalling how once we welcomed her

from The Book of Seventy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009