Spring zone

There has to be a zone for spring,
for darkness bursting into light
too fast for metering,
too swift for placing,
changing even as you look.
That dark limb
just a moment ago
was Zone III shadowed,
and now is suddenly alight,
aflame with desire
to bud and sprig and grow,
be all that it can be.
No simple highlight,
it shimmers,
sunlit, vibrantly itself,
yet contains the shadow
of what it will become at season’s end,
when leaves fall to earth,
blend with all the other leaves—
Zone V.
There has to be a zone
that holds both gleaming darkness,
and incipient light,
shows that one is after all
the other’s other side,
springing into one
falling into the other
throughout the seasons
zonefree,
all zones
absorbed
into one
heart of things.