Sonnet #23: Spring

Spring hurries on stage, well before her cue:
Winter didn't show; cardboard scenery shakes;
her make-up's smudged; her costume is askew.
But she says her line, and the world awakes.

The force that through the green fuse drives us all
stirs in black soil and unlit shoots arise,
part the wet clods and climb out of the pall.
So stirs my blood to life, my heart, my eyes.

The season's wrong: it is too soon for this,
but I am dumb to mouth unto my veins,
to slow the pulse, to unwake, to unkiss;
no more can plants ungrow or clouds unrain.

Too soon, too soon, and blood roars in my ears.
Too soon, too soon, it drowns out all my fears.

[debt to Dylan Thomas obvious;
sorry about the broken scansion in the first quatrain;
I think this is #23 but may have lost count]